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

402,000 mi 2 total area 87,000 mi 2 in MX (Rio Grande headwaters) 320 forecast points, 15 major river systems Snowpack Water supply Rocky terrain Flash flood threats Rapid river responses Tropical threats Storm surges Coastal flooding Prolonged river flooding Complex 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 16 th 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 inches  24 hour U.S. Record

World/U.S. Record Rains  Thrall (1921) – inches storm total  inches in 18 hours (World Record)

World/U.S. Records  D’Hanis 17NW (05/31/1935)  inches in 2 hours 45 minutes (World Record)

World/U.S. Record  Kerr/Bandera Counties  Tropical Storm Amelia August 1-4, 1978  inches (48 inches near Medina 3 day total)  72 hour U.S. Record

Texas Record  New Braunfels (05/11/1972)  inches in 1 hour

Other Storms of Note  T.S. Allison 2001  inches NE Harris County (5 day total)  Marble Falls 2007  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 2007June 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?