Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 1 COE/NWS/USGS Tri-Agency Meeting Mississippi River Basin AHPS UPDATE COE/NWS/USGS Tri-Agency Meeting Mississippi River Basin AHPS UPDATE Craig Hunter Hydrologist-In-Charge NOAA/NWS/Ohio River Forecast Center November 14-15, 2006

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 2 Outline Status of AHPS Implementation Existing Products New Products Developmental Work/Products

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 3 AHPS Implementation Status OHRFC fully converted to SAC-SMA model OHRFC generating 90-day probability of exceedance outlooks for entire basin OHRFC has been re- calibrating selected river segments including the Scioto River basin OHRFC adding several new forecast points on tributaries

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 4 Climate Forecasts Ensemble Streamflow Prediction Weather Forecasts Historical MAT and MAP Adjustment System Adjusted Historical MAP and MAT

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 5 AHPS 90-DAY OUTLOOK

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 6 AHPS 90-DAY OUTLOOKS

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 7 New Products Water Resources Outlook Experimental Water Resources Outlook at OHRFC Based on SAC-SMA model Based on OHRFC/HPC/CPC QPF Based on Ensemble Streamflow Prediction Parterning with other RFCs to expand this product

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 8 Water Resources Outlook Partner with USGS/COE Utilize USGS streamflow percentiles Verify product based on USGS flows Experimental period for 1-year to verify and show utility

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 9 Water Resources Outlook Will also base it on individual USGS points that are NWS forecast points 159 of 276 OHRFC points will have these 30, 60 and 90 day expected streamflows Up to 20 more USGS points to be used as the complete data-set for these locations becomes available in the future.

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 10 Developmental Work/Products ESP Non-Exceedance Outlooks

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 11 Non-Exceedance Outlooks

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 12 ESP with Post-Adj Technique Pre-Adjustment technique currently uses climate prediction center outlooks to adjustment the historical time-series for ALL years Post-Adjustment technique would weight years based on climate regimes such as El Nino or the North Atlantic Oscillation, etc. Run ESP with pre- and post- adjustments Research on the post-adjustment is being done by OHRFC and Michigan Tech submitted for a project with AHPS funding on this

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 13 Short-term probabilistic forecasts OHRFC is running the MM5 model currently to 60-hours on a U.S. scale and 36-hours on the Ohio Valley scale OHRFC will be moving to a Linux cluster and expand the run to 5-7 days Will use a statistical approach to generate short-term probabilistic forecasts Will verify results

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 14 Mesoscale modeling at OHRFC 24-hr MM5 rainfall24-hr observed rainfall MM5 probabilistic project also leading to benefits for 24-hour QPF deterministic forecasts. It is being used as input into OHRFC 24-hr operational QPF currently.

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 15 Real-time Flood Innudation Mapping Using HEC-RAS Used FLDWAV for operational testing last 4 years Need a GUI to visualize/adjust forecasts 2 staff members sent to HEC for HEC-RAS and HEC- GeoRAS training Agreement in principal with USGS and USACE Ohio River District to develop community HEC-RAS for unsteady flows on Ohio River for: Flood inundation mapping Water quality studies Other operational needs

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 16 PW PE RH Improving QPF with use of PE PW Mean RH Observed Rainfall PE = PW * Mean RH Looks at how efficient atmosphere is at raining out moisture More focused than many other current meteorological parameters on QPF placement Biggest challenges to QPF for hydrology: spatial placement of rainfall Improves over PW or RH alone

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 17 PW 24-hr cumulative GFS PE Improving QPF Forecasts 24-hr PE versus 24-hr cumulative GFS QPF. Oct 5, 2006 flood event. Improving QPF Forecasts 24-hr PE versus 24-hr cumulative GFS QPF. Oct 5, 2006 flood event. 24-hr cumulative GFS QPF

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 18 PW 24-hr cumulative GFS PE PE Can Help Better Place Model QPF 24-hr cumulative PE provided better placement of QPF maxima over GFS QPF placement. PE Can Help Better Place Model QPF 24-hr cumulative PE provided better placement of QPF maxima over GFS QPF placement. 24-hr observed rainfall

Mississippi River Tri-Agency Meeting National Weather Service 19Summary Produce Probabilistic forecasts with the SAC-SMA model using ESP Existing products of the 90-Day Probability of exceedance forecasts can now be expanded to include products such as non-exceedance forecasts, Water Resources Outlooks and short-term probability forecasts. Other developmental works continues into short- term modeling and the use of HEC-RAS on the Ohio River. The goal of many of these products would better link multi-agency goals and further strengthen NWS/USGS/USACE partnerships.