The Areal Mean Basin Estimated Rainfall (AMBER) Program A Tool to Assist in Flash Flood Forecasting...
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Transcript of The Areal Mean Basin Estimated Rainfall (AMBER) Program A Tool to Assist in Flash Flood Forecasting...
The Areal Mean Basin Estimated Rainfall(AMBER) Program
A Tool to Assist in Flash Flood Forecasting
Ami Arthur
Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS) /
National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL),
Western Intermountain Storms and Hydrometeorology (WISH) Team
The AMBER Program
• Simply a large “book keeping” program to keep track of the precipitation falling in multiple basins.
• Input: Precipitation estimates from the Weather Surveillance Radar - 1988 Doppler (WSR-88D)
• Output: Average basin rainfall (ABR) rates and accumulations
History of AMBER
• Developed by Bob Davis (Pittsburgh NWSFO) and Paul Jendrowski (Honolulu NWSFO) over the past 15 years.
• First operational in May 1985 at Pittsburgh.• 10-mi2 basins delineated manually from a fishing
stream map of Pennsylvania.• Initially no ABR computation--simply overlay
comparison with WSR-57 rainfall estimates.• Eventually ABR computations were added, but all
output was text-based.
History of AMBER• It was discovered that smaller basins were needed
to be able to accurately forecast flash floods.• 3-mi2 basins were manually delineated from 7.5-
minute topographic maps.• WSR-88D rainfall estimates were mapped to the
basins.• AMBER was operational with the 3-mi2 basins in
May 1996 at Pittsburgh.• AMBER was operational with 1-mi2 basins in
urban areas in May 1999.
History of AMBER• In 1998, NSSL became involved in AMBER
work.• 10-mi2 basins were delineated in ArcView from
3-arc-second DEMs and RF1 data for the Tulsa, OK and Sterling, VA NWSFOs.
• A prototype graphical display was developed.• AMBER and the new display were operational in
Tulsa and Sterling by Fall 1998.• In 1999, NSSL conducted a formal evaluation of
AMBER at these two sites.
AMBER Input• The success of AMBER is
highly dependent on three factors:
• Quality of the basin delineation
• Quality of the precipitation estimates
• The forecaster’s ability to interpret AMBER output and the hydrologic situation
KINX (Tulsa) Radar Bin Centroids Mapped to the Delineated Basins
NSSL’s AMBER Display
Future of AMBER
• The NWS plans to include an AMBER-like functionality as part of the Flash Flood Monitoring and Prediction (FFMP) program to be implemented in the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS).
• An initial version will be operational by Summer 2001.
• Updates and modifications will continue after that.
Future of AMBER• NSSL has been tasked with delineating basins (2-
mi2 minimum basin threshold) and preparing FFMP data sets for every NWSFO in the country.
• This will be an initial effort to make the FFMP operational for everyone as quickly as possible.
• Use of the NED will assure the best quality possible for the initial basin cut.
• The basin delineation work done here can also benefit the NED-H project.
• An excellent opportunity for cooperation with EROS and minimization of duplicate efforts!
Concluding Remarks
• AMBER provides valuable, up-to-date information to forecasters for many basins over various time intervals.
• AMBER monitors rainfall accumulation and rate on the basin level and alerts the forecaster to potential flash flooding.
• AMBER provides a much needed tool to assist in flash flood forecasting and warning decisions.