1. Jennifer Boehnert Emily Riddle Tom Hopson
Web Mapping of rainfall forecasts and observations over the Ganges and Brahamaputra river basins
Jennifer Boehnert
Emily Riddle
Tom Hopson

2. Goal: Create an effective display tool for precipitation forecasts relevant to hydrological flows and flood prediction
Components:
Near real-time rainfall forecasts displayed on hydrological catchments
Up-to-date satellite observations of recent precipitation
Forecast archives and satellite validation for selected past periods of flooding

3. Processing for Real-time Web Display
Forecast Models:
Automatically downloaded every 6 hours to NCAR
Calculate ensemble mean and spread
Calculate 24 hr and 5 day accumulations at various lead times
Realtime Satellite
Observations:
Automatically downloaded and merged every 6 hours
Regrid and integrate to catchments at two different scales
Calculate 24 hr
and 5 day accumulations
Catchment shape files
Interactive Map
Comparisons with climate archive
GIS Pre-processing for display
Historical Satellite Data Archive

4. Forecasts
Forecasts are on 2 day delay from TIGGE (The International Grand Global Ensemble).
Forecast Center
Country /
Region
# of Ensemble Members
Forecast
Out to:
Currently
on Display
ECMWF
Europe 50
15 days
Yes
UKMO UK 11
7 days EC
Canada 20
16 days
NCEP
USA
< Dec 2015
CMA
China 14 No
CPTEC
Brazil
MeteoFrance
France 34
4.5 days
JMA
Japan 26
11 days
BoM
Australia 32
10 days
KMA
Korea 23
10.5 days
Originally a project of THORPEX: a World Weather Research Programme project to accelerate the improvements in the accuracy of 1-day to 2-week high-impact weather forecasts.

5. Satellite Products
Satellite products are available as soon as each 24-hour accumulation period is completed.
Product
Name
Institution
Country
Sensor Types
Resolution
TRMM
NASA
USA
Passive microwave,
Infrared
0.25 deg
GSMAP
JAXA
Japan
0.1 deg
CMORPH
NOAA
~0.1 deg
Our NCAR merged product is a simple average of the available satellite products

6. Spatial and temporal scales:
Skill improves with larger temporal and spatial averaging periods/areas.
Spatial:
28 Catchments
4696 Catchments
Temporal:
24 hour accumulations: 0 to 10 day lead times
5 day accumulations: 0-4 day, 5-9 day, day lead times

8. New features:
1) Time series plots for each catchment:
Upcoming 10 day rainfall forecast
Seasonal cycle with recent rainfall amounts
2) Ensemble spread information
3) Historical dates with similar precipitation amounts
4) Calibrated forecasts