Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2008FL216B

Use of NEXRAD data to develop climatologically homogeneous rainfall areas for the South Florida Water Management District

Institute: Florida
Year Established: 2008 Start Date: 2008-03-01 End Date: 2009-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $5,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $17,000

Principal Investigators: Henry Fuelberg

Abstract: There is constant need for high quality rain gauge and NEXRAD rainfall data. NEXRAD rainfall data rely on raindrop reflectively which is affected by factors such as drop size distribution, signal reflection by other objects, and radar calibration. Small changes in drop size distribution can have a dramatic effect on the radars rainfall estimate. For this reason radar-derived precipitation estimates are generally scaled to match values measured by rain gauges. The best of both measurement techniques is realized by using the rain gauge data to adjust the NEXRAD values. This study will investigate NEXRAD rainfall and rain gauge data and their use for the development of climatologically homogeneous areas.