RUNOFF SIMULATION USING RADAR RAINFALL DATA¹

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Rainfall data products generated with the national network of WSR‐88D radars are an important new data source provided by the National Weather Service. Radar‐based data include rainfall depth on an hourly basis for grid cells that are nominally 4 km square. The availability of such data enables application of improved techniques for rainfall‐runoff simulation. A simple quasi‐distributed approach that applies a linear runoff transform to grid‐ded rainfall excess has been developed. The approach is an adaptation of the Clark conceptual runoff model, which employs translation and linear storage. Data development for, and results of, an initial application to a 4160 km 2 watershed in the Midwestern U.S. are illustrated.