UTILIZATION OF PRECIPITATION ESTIMATES DERIVED FROM COMPOSITE RADAR

The National Weather Service (NWS) river forecast centers produce grid-based estimates of hourly precipitation for NEXRAD radar data and precipitation measurements at selected gages. These NWS Stage III precipitation estimates can provide valuable information on the spatial and temporal distribution of storm rainfall over a watershed. The spatial resolution of the precipitation grid is four kilometers. Stage III data files for southern Kansas may be obtained from the archives of the NWS Arkansas-Red Basin River Forecast Center via the Internet. Stage III data files for the Missouri River basin, which includes northern Kansas, are produced by the NWS Missouri Basin River Forecast Center. These data files have been archived by our project team at the University of Kansas since July 1995. An Arc/Info Geographic Information System (GIS) application has been developed to analyze the Stage III precipitation data in a watershed context. This application, the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) Storm Analysis System, contains routines to develop precipitation contours and compute spatial-average precipitation over a watershed. It also includes routines to delineate watershed boundaries and calculate drainage areas, channel lengths and slopes from existing digital data sets. The project team has used this system to analyze several storms that caused flooding on Kansas highways.

• Record URL:
  https://ntlrepository.blob.core.windows.net/lib/22000/22000/22030/PB99155574.pdf
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  University of Kansas, Lawrence

  Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  Lawrence, KS  United States  66045

  Kansas Department of Transportation

  Docking State Office Building
  Topeka, KS  United States  66612
• Authors:
  • Young, C B
  • McEnroe, B M
  • Quinn, R J
• Publication Date: 1998-1

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 196 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Data files; Drainage basins; Estimates; Floods; Geographic information systems; Precipitation (Meteorology); Rainfall; Storms; Watersheds
• Identifier Terms: U.S. National Weather Service
• Geographic Terms: Kansas
• Subject Areas: Highways; Hydraulics and Hydrology; I26: Water Run-off - Freeze-thaw;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00765874
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: K-TRAN: KU-96-7,, Final Report
• Contract Numbers: C-825
• Files: NTL, TRIS, ATRI, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Jul 2 1999 12:00AM