Transcript An Improved User Interface for Viewing the NWS`s Hourly

AN IMPROVED USER INTERFACE
FOR VIEWING NWS HOURLY
PRECIPITATION GRAPHICS
NATIONAL FLOOD WORKSHOP
OCT 26, 2010
Bill Lawrence
Service Coordination Hydrologist
Arkansas Red River Forecast Center
Tulsa, OK
QPE WEB HISTORY
Early 1990s
WSR88D produced
radar centric QPEs
which were later put
onto the web
QPE WEB HISTORY
Mid 1990s
ABRFC first RFC to provide mosaiced and QC’d
hourly and 24 hourly QPEs gifs/data to web
QPE WEB HISTORY
Aug 1999
ABRFC added
normals and % of
normal gifs
QPE WEB HISTORY
2003
WGRFC created mosaic
of 4 Southern Region
RFC QPEs with
normals, % of normal,
QPE WEB HISTORY
Nov 2005
ABRFC created
National 24 hour QPE
mosaics with archive
starting at Jan 1, 2005.
QPE WEB HISTORY
2007
AHPS web pages also began
producing 24 hour QPE pages
QPE WEB HISTORY
Late 2007
ABRFC started creating HOURLY mosaics of SR
QPEs. Expanded to include 10 of CONUS RFCs
QPE WEB HISTORY
Oct 2009
Zoom-able (Google maps) hourly QPEs
NWS Zoomable Hourly
QPE Page
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ridge2/RFC_Precip/
WHY USE THESE
QPES?
BECAUSE THEY ARE MULTISENSOR
BEST OF ALL WORLDS
WHY USE THESE
QPES?
BECAUSE THEY ARE
AVAILABLE IN SEMIREALTIME (H+50) AND
UPDATED EVERY HOUR!!
AND THE RAW DATA IS
AVAILABLE FOR
DOWNLOAD!!
WHY USE THESE
QPES?
• Remove AP, bright bands,
etc
• Review every raingage value
• Try to remove radar artifacts
• Add “psuedo” gages to raise
or lower values in regions
• Make sure gridded estimates
match Co-op and Cocorahs
observers on 24 hour basis
• Use hydro-meteorological
knowledge
Extensive Human Quality Control !!!
Results in best QPE available anywhere!
QPE WEB COMMENTS
“Reliable, valid, and best available!”
“The only improvement I can think of is more frequent updates….”
“In a time when products and services are being cut back in many areas, its nice to
have dependable useful products available.”
“Please continue to make this product available”
“Tax dollars bringing useful information to taxpayers”
“I find it very useful and would hate to be without it”
“This is a spectacular service. Thank you for providing it. As a county engineer it
is a great!!! resource…”
“Timeliness is excellent”
QPE WEB
How is it Currently Used ?
Wheat Crop Update/Harvest information
To support personal decision making, re outdoor activities
As an agricultural producer, it is useful for irrigation timing, crop moisture
Where to go on my field operations after a rain event
Teacher – Forecast discussion in class
When to plant trees, seeds on my property and when to visit areas like
National Parks for camping and hiking.
Routes to use based on area flood plains; short trips vs long trips
It is a tool we use at this WalMart to plan on keeping accidents down and a
better shopping experience for the customers
QPE WEB
What can we improve?
• Make ONE webpage that allows users
seamless selection of data ranging from
one hour up to multiple years and allows
zooming down to street level
• Allow user to select the time periods of
data to view, not just default time periods
• Allow late updates from RFCs (no time
limit) to automatically update on web
•Allow easy download of image/raw data of
both QPEs and NORMALs in shapefiles,
kmz, gifs, etc.
•Include data from AK, HI, PR & Western
RFCS
QPE WEB
What can we improve?
Operational
Encourage RFCs to review and correct QPE
differences along RFC borders when
appropriate! COORDINATION!
Continue to refine the science of QPE to
allow ever increasing reliability and
availability of QPEs
Provide solid support for upkeep and
maintenance of future NWS QPE webpages
& archive as well as operational NWS folks
to answer questions that arise from the
users of the data
QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION ITEMS?