Download - West gulf River Forecast center
WEST GULF RIVER FORECAST CENTER
A Little Bit of Everything…
Introduction We want to welcome you to Fort
Worth. “All work and no play makes Jack a
dull boy” We hope that after this week’s
conference, Fort Worth isn’t “dull” Try to brief you on what makes West
Gulf RFC…West Gulf…
The WGRFC Area
The WGRFC Area402,000 mi2 total area 87,000 mi2 in MX (Rio Grande headwaters)320 forecast points, 15 major river systems
Snowpack Water supply
Rocky terrainFlash flood threatsRapid river responses
Tropical threatsStorm surges Coastal flooding
Prolonged river floodingComplex reservoir operations
Are we the biggest? APRFC – 571,000 sq. mi. * MBRFC – 509,000 sq. mi. WGRFC – 402,000 sq. mi. (87000 sq. mi. in MX) NCRFC – 325,000 sq. mi. CBRFC – 303,000 sq. mi. NWRFC – 285,000 sq. mi. SERFC – 258,000 sq. mi. CNRFC – 239,000 sq. mi. LMRFC – 209,000 sq. mi. ABRFC – 208,000 sq. mi. OHRFC – 178,000 sq. mi. NERFC – 106,000 sq. mi. MARFC – 87,000 sq. mi.* APRFC would be the 16th largest country in the world
“Autonomous?”
Every river starts in the WGRFC area, and ends in the ocean…
All but NCRFC, OHRFC, ABRFC, MBRFC, and LMRFC also meet this criteria
Tropical Impacts? We have a lot, but we are not alone
WGRFC Facts…
3 top 10 Metro areas in the U.S. (DFW Metro, Houston Metro, Austin/San Antonio Metro)
8 Fastest Growing Counties (in the national top 100*) Rockwall, Williamson, Collin, Hays,
Montgomery, Comal, Kendall, Denton Texas has one natural lake (Cadd0
Lake) All others man-made It is not in our area* U.S. Census Bureau change from 2000 to 2006
World/U.S.Record Rains
Alvin, 1979 Tropical Storm Claudette Estimated 43.00 inches 24 hour U.S. Record
World/U.S. Record Rains
Thrall (1921) – 38.20 inches storm total 36.40 inches in 18 hours (World Record)
World/U.S. Records
D’Hanis 17NW (05/31/1935) 22.00 inches in 2 hours 45 minutes
(World Record)
World/U.S. Record
Kerr/Bandera Counties Tropical Storm Amelia August 1-4, 1978 42.00 inches (48 inches near Medina 3
day total) 72 hour U.S. Record
Texas Record
New Braunfels (05/11/1972) 10.00 inches in 1 hour
Other Storms of Note
T.S. Allison 2001 38.99 inches NE Harris County (5 day
total) Marble Falls 2007
18.00+ inches in approx. 4 hours July 2002
45+ inches in a week over Hill Country Ingram 07/1932
19.6” in 6 hrs; 32.4” in 18 hrs; 35.6” in 36 hrs.
WGRFC – More on Rainfall
We see big rains…often
May 2008
May 2007 June 2007
June 2008
WGRFC
WGRFC is primarily a “Flood” RFC 14 daily stage forecasts 4 daily flow forecasts
From Texas History – settlers were very disappointed with our rivers. They were useless for commerce/transportation (thus our city centers are not necessarily located near them).
It is not uncommon to see a Texas river go from baseflow, to major flooding, to baseflow in 24 to 36 hours.
WGRFC HAS Unit
Frontrunner of the RFCs on the Q2 project Q2 in MPE on hourly basis (11/07) 24 hour comparison of gauge, Q2, raw
radar, best QPE Paper on results for Oct 2008 NWA
conference Instructions/guidance for OHRFC and
CBRFC Future Possibilities
Q2 in the FieldGen Process (bias correction)
Local WFO level for SSHP
Why Q2?
24 Hours -Raw Radar (DPA)
24 Hours - Q2 24 Hours - Best Estimate
WGRFC HAS Unit
Hydrologic Decision Support tools (Chiclets) SR RFC Team
Create “river flood” threat for WFO pages Greg Shelton (Sr. HAS) is “the” RFC
representative on the National Team
WGRFC HAS Trendsetter Graphical Hydrometeorlogical
Discussion (HMD) One Stop Shopping
WGRFC Hydrology
Variational Assimilation (D.J. Seo and Lee Cajina) Uses real-time streamflows to “back” calculate
initial state conditions Assimilates real-time streamflow, real-time MAP and
climatological MAPE into lumped SAC-UHG Adjusts SAC states, MAP and MAPE
Available at headwaters Ran at WGRFC
Since 2003 Hourly time step Model forecast 72 hours out
Like Others
Work with DHMS SSHP and VAR Flood Inundation Mapping AHPS
The End
Questions/comments?