1. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica Weather Decision Technologies, Inc. Hydro-Meteorological Decision Support System Bill Conway, Vice President

2. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica Weather Decision Technologies  Founded in 1999 by scientists from the National Severe Storms Laboratory, the University of Oklahoma, and the Oklahoma Climate Survey, currently have 25 employees  WDT has expertise in data integration, processing, and advanced algorithm design, and operational implementation  Operational Decision Support Systems implemented both in the US and internationally  Technology partners are the US National Severe Storms Lab, McGill University Canada, University of Oklahoma, National Center for Atmospheric Research, TOA Systems (US Precision Lightning Network), Enterprise Electronics Cooperation

3. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica WDT Weather Decision Support Systems  Nowcast Decision Support System – for producing user- specific short-term warnings and predictions of severe and hazardous weather phenomena.  HydroMet Decision Support System – automated nowcasting (0-3 hrs) of severe weather and flash flooding  Aviation Weather Decision Support System - predictions and forecasts of weather potentially hazardous to aircraft and personnel in air and ground operations  Mesoscale Forecast Decision Support System – custom operational numerical weather prediction solutions

4. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica Radars Satellite IR Surface Observations Upper Air Obs Lightning Nowcasts of Many Weather Phenomena Precipitation Estimates and Predictions Lightning Predictions HydroMet Products Data Integration HydroMet Decision Support System

5. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica HDSS Overview  Integrates all available data – radar (single or dual-pol), satellite, model, surface stations, and rain gauges  Performs data quality control and builds 3D mosaics of the data  HDSS Algorithms:  QPE using Quantitative Precipitation Estimation Using Multiple Sensors  QPF using the McGill Algorithm for Precipitation Nowcasting Using Semi-Lagrangian Extrapolation (MAPLE)  Flash Flood Prediction Algorithm  Web browser based display  3D display workstation

6. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica Uses for HydroMet Decision Support System  QPE/QPF derived flood prediction on various time scales and domains  Automated flood warning decision support tools for operational forecasters  Customizable Web-based alert and warning dissemination  Initialization fields for hydrological modeling

7. US HDSS Deployments Salt River Project Arizona Texas/Oklahoma Weather Modification Project NOAA Sea Grant North Carolina Lower Colorado River Authority Texas

8. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica International HDSS DeploymentsCWBTaiwan ARPAV Italy TMDThailand

9. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica WDT Central Processing Facility in the USA

10. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica Radars Satellite Surface Observations Upper Air Obs Lightning Nowcasts of Many Weather Phenomena Precipitation Estimates and Predictions Lightning Predictions HydroMet Products Data Integration HydroMet Decision Support System

11. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica HDSS Functionality  Data quality control and 3D mosaicing  QPE using Quantitative Precipitation Estimation Using Multiple Sensors  QPF using the McGill Algorithm for Precipitation Nowcasting Using Semi-Lagrangian Extrapolation (MAPLE)  Flash Flood Prediction Algorithm

12. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica Data Quality and Mosaic  Clutter removal  Attenuation correction  Bright band/hail identification  Vertical Profile of Reflectivity correction  Hybrid scanning  Using dual-polarization radars, QC results can be significantly improved  Data from all available radars are mosaicked on a 1x1 (horizontal) km X 500 (vertical) m grid  QPE-SUMS and QPF-MAPLE are derived from the mosaic results

13. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica Hybrid Scanning

14. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica Multi-radar Multi-radar mosaic example

15. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica QPE-SUMS Algorithm  Quantitative Precipitation Estimation and Segregation Using Multiple Sensors  Integrates radar, satellite, gauge, and numerical model data  Can use QPE from polarization derived results (Kdp, Zdr, etc)  Produces QPEs on high resolution grid  Convective/stratiform and frozen/liquid segregation using satellite and model data  Integrates satellite derived rainfall estimates  Differential Z-R equations  Utilizes real-time rain gauge data to remove biases in radar estimates  Produces QPE products for past 72 hrs

16. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica Objective Analysis of Rain Gauge Data

17. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica Example of 3hr Total QPE

18. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica QPF Based on the McGill Algorithm for Precipitation Forecasting Using Semi-Lagrangian Extrapolation (QPF-MAPLE)   Developed at McGill University, Montreal, Canada by Zawadski and Germann over a period of several years   Provides forecasts of reflectivity out to 8 hours depending on scale and domain

19. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica Sample MAPLE Forecast

20. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica HDSS in Italy Example of a QPF-Maple 3 hr Rainfall Forecast

21. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica Flash Flood Prediction Algorithm  Uses QPE-SUMs output to automatically identify basins that are approaching or exceeding Flash Flood Guidance (FFG), out to 72 hrs  Uses output from QPF-Maple, added to QPE-SUMS, to determine what basins will approach or exceed FFG in the next 3 hours

22. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica Basin Delineation Example with Rainfall Amounts

23. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica Italy: Basins with Warnings

24. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica FFG View and Edit Pages

25. March 14, 2006Intl FFF Workshop, Costa Rica Conclusions  HDSS is a robust system well suited to operational hydromet applications  HDSS is installed at several locations both in the US and internationally  HDSS integrates and processes radar, satellite, model, and surface data  HDSS includes data quality control, radar mosaics, QPE, QPF, and flash flood forecasting  HDSS can be adapted to any location worldwide  HDSS can be run with single or dual-pol radars  Future work includes:  Integration of numerical model data within QPF-MAPLE  Integrate inundation mapping capability  Ongoing performance verification studies in Italy and the US