Multi-variate Analysis of National Scale

Hydrologic Simulations & Predictions: NFIE 2015

NCAR: D. Gochis, A. Dugger, L. Pan, W. Yu, K. Sampson, J.
McCreight, Y. Zhang, D. Yates
U. Texas-Austin: M. Somos, F. Salas, D. Maidment
U. Arizona: T. Lahmers; U. Iowa: M. ElSaadani
Jul. 16, 2015

Hydrologic Prediction with the

Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

Outline:
NFIE Operational Workflow and Model
Configuration
NFIE Model Evaluation:

Verification tools & data

Model correlation & bias
Precipitation bias
Process evaluation

Hydrologic Prediction with the Community WRF-Hydro

System

air planet people

Acknowledgements: A big team!

U. Alabama and NWC: Local host

NSSL: development and provision of real-time radar data
ESRL&NCEP: high resolution data assimilation & NWP forecasts
Unidata: real-time data service
USGS/EPA/Horizon, Inc.: NHDPlus support
NSF XSEDE/TACC/Yellowstone supercomputing support for R&D and
operational model runs
Cedric David: RAPID upgrade and support
BYU-Tethys: Operational display
CUAHSI/NSF-Hydrology/EarthCube & NOAA/NWC, many local institutions:
Sponsorship

Hydrologic Prediction with the Community WRF-Hydro

System

air planet people

NFIE-2015 System Configurations

Hydrologic Prediction with the Community WRF-Hydro

System

air planet people

WRF-Hydro/RAPID for the Community National Flood

Interoperability Experiment (NFIE)
Operational MRMS QPE and HRRR QPF
Experimental WRF-Hydro
1.

Goal: Produce real-time flood

information on the NHDPlus
river network as inputs for
FEMA flood mapping

2.

Collaborators: UT-Austin,
CUAHSI, NWS-OHD, NCAR,
Unidata, ESRI, Microsoft

3.

WRF-Hydro and RAPID codes

set up on UT-Austin stampede
system

4.

Mapping of land model grid

runoff to NHDPlus2 catchments
defined a priori using ArcGIS
tools

5.

Benchmark model runs with

4,3,2 and 1km land model grids
all feasible

Water
Mgt.

netCDF
to
NHD+

River flow in the Mississippi River Basin

Data Services

RAPID NHDPlus Channel Flow

Source: http://rapid-hub.org/

Hydrologic Prediction with the Community WRF-Hydro

System

Modeled and observed streamflow

air planet people

NFIE Forecasting Workflow:

1. Model Upgrade and Implementation: RAPID and WRF-Hydro/NoahMP
2. Land Model Spinup: WRF-Hydro/NoahMP driven by 5 years of regridded NLDAS
forcing with GFS model background
3. WRF-Hydro Forcing Data Engine: Acquire real-time feed of NSSL/NCEP MRMS
(Unidata LDM) and ESRL-HRRR (ftp)
4. WRF-Hydro Forcing Data Engine: Forcing data regridding using ESMF regridding
tools and NCAR/ncl scripts.Transfer data to NSF XSEDE/U. Texas TACC (stampede)
5. Model Execution: WRF-Hydro/NoahMP on stampede.provide gridded runoff
and water balance variables in netcdf format

6. Conversion of netcdf gridded runoff from WRF-Hydro/NoahMP to NHDPlusv2

reach-based channel inflows for RAPID using tailored ArcGIS geo-processing scripts
7. Model Execution: RAPID on stampedeprovide reach (point) netcdf output of
river flow on NHDPlus network.
Hydrologic Prediction with the Community WRF-Hydro
System

air planet people

NFIE Forecasting Workflow: (continued)

7. IRODS data service: Data shipped to RNCI every 3 hrs (forcings, gridded runoff,
channel flows)
8. Tethys Web Application: Upload to CKAN server at BYU (visualization and
discovery)

Hydrologic Prediction with the Community WRF-Hydro

System

air planet people

NFIE WRF-Hydro/NoahMP Set-up:

NHDPlusV2-Encompassing Domain
3km NoahMP land model only:
No terrain routing (only offline
channel routing by RAPID)
No reservoirs
2011 NLCD land cover type
NRCS STATSGO, 1km soils
Climatological vegetation structure

Spin-up: 5 year 2010-2014

continuous run:
Regridded NLDAS2/GFS
background
Downscaling of T/RH/SW/Press. is
now underway for sensitivity
testing
Hydrologic Prediction with the Community WRF-Hydro
System

air planet people

NFIE Evaluations: 5-yr Benchmark Evaluation Using

rwrfhydro
2001 USGS vs. 2011 NLCD Land cover specification

Hydrologic Prediction with the Community WRF-Hydro

System

air planet people

NFIE Default Set-up Computational Requirement:

WRF-Hydro/NoahMP Runtime: 128 cores, U. TexasXSEDE stampede, 3km NoahMP
No routing (default NFIE configuration): ~9 min wall clock for 14
hr simulation time

RAPID Runtime:
1.5 minutes for one 14 hr forecast cycle on one node (16 cores)

Model output is thinned to following variables, with

emphasis on water budget:
NHPlus Channel Flows from RAPID
SW, LW, ground heat flux, sensible heat flux, evaporation, transpiration,
soil moisture (4 layers), surface runoff, subsurface runoff, snow depth,
snow water equivalent, precipitation, surface skin temperature
Hydrologic Prediction with the Community WRF-Hydro
System

air planet people

Verification Tool Description

Hydrologic Prediction with the Community WRF-Hydro

System

air planet people

Verification tools and data: rwrfhydro

Verification data:
Streamflow:
USGS Gauges-II dataset
Minimally humanimpacted

Precipitation:
GHCN data
SNOTEL

Ameriflux Network
ET (pending)
https://github.com/mccreigh/rwrfhydro, http://www.ral.ucar.edu/projects/wrf_hydro/
Hydrologic Prediction with the
Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

Model Evaluation & Benchmarking:

Hydrologic Prediction with the

Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

NFIE-2015 WRF-Hydro/NoahMP & RAPID

Model Analysis: MRMS-driven runs

Hydrologic Prediction with the

Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

Streamflow Correlations at GAGES-II Reference Basins

WRF-Hydro/NoahMP

WRF-Hydro/NoahMP/RAPID

Good correlations in the Pacific NW, Central US

Fairly good correlations in Eastern US (Appalachian)
Poor correlations in the Rockies, arid Southwest, and Northern Plains
Improved performance with RAPID routing in Eastern and Central US
Hydrologic Prediction with the
Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

Streamflow Correlations at GAGES-II Reference Basins

WRF-Hydro/NoahMP

WRF-Hydro/NoahMP/RAPID

RAPID channel routing shows significant improvements over LSM-only at the

hourly timescale

Hydrologic Prediction with the

Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

Streamflow Bias at GAGES-II Reference Basins

WRF-Hydro/NoahMP/RAPID

Generally low bias in the West (likely too early snowmelt)

High bias in the Southeast and Central US
Smaller biases in the Northeast
How much is due to precipitation forcing and how much is due to the model?
Hydrologic Prediction with the
Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

Streamflow Performance at GAGES-II Reference Basins: Successes!

Hydrologic Prediction with the

Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

Streamflow Performance at GAGES-II Reference Basins: Problem Areas

Hydrologic Prediction with the

Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

NFIE-2015 WRF-Hydro/NoahMP & RAPID

Process Evaluation

Hydrologic Prediction with the

Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

Process Evaluation: Fixing Snow Biases for Streamflow Forecasting Applications

Hydrologic Prediction with the

Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

Process Evaluation: Lateral Routing and Reservoir Storage

WRF-Hydro v. USGS Streamflow
Ocheyedan River Near Spencer, IA
0605000

m3/s
USGS Gauge
NFIE-Hydro
WRF-Hydro

Images courtesy of
Mohamed ElSaadani
& Timothy Lahmers
Hydrologic Prediction with the
Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

Process Evaluation: Lateral Routing and Reservoir Storage

Impact of lateral routing on
Fourmile Creek in CO, consistent
with Iowa findings

Addition of reservoir storage

on the Guadalupe River in TX

Image courtesy of Fernando Salas

& Marcelo Somos
Hydrologic Prediction with the
Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

Summary
In most cases simulated uncalibrated NoahMP runoff is very
flashy compared to observed streamflowwhy?
Lack of routing processes

Most regions of US show reasonable correlation.problems

in southern Rockies, SW and north Plains
Most regions have significant biases.Why?

Precipitation bias propagation?

SW (Texas, NM, AZ) lack of channel losses, non-contributing areas?
Piedmont, Florida. insufficient infiltration?
Intermountain West. early melt-out snow bias (largely fixed)
Hydrologic Prediction with the
Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

NFIE-2015 WRF-Hydro/NoahMP
Preliminary Forcing Data Analysis

Hydrologic Prediction with the

Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

NFIE Evaluations: Real-time outputs

MRMS Precipitation Bias (HRRR evaluation in progress)
MRMS bias as compared to
reference precip
constructed from StageIV, the
CMC/CPC North American
analysis, and NLDAS2
(courtesy of David Kitzmiller,
NOAA)

MRMS bias as compared to

GHCN gage data
(200 points shown)
Hydrologic Prediction with the
Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

Summary
Things to consider
NFIE runs are largely uncalibrated
Land model only runs without terrain routing can
significantly affect the timescale of runoff responses
and hydrograph structure
Catchment aggregation and direct translation of soil
column water can have significant shortcomings,
particularly for slow, subsurface processes
Forcing uncertainty in the western U.S. is significant and
MRMS while improved likely faces challenges

Hydrologic Prediction with the

Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet

Next Step: National Water Prediction Model Configurations

WRF-Hydro IOC Configurations
Analysis &
Assimilation

Short-Range
Flood Prediction

Medium Range
Flow Prediction

Long Range
Water Resources

3-Hourly

Daily

~Daily (x16)

0-2 days

0-10 days

0-30 days

1km/250m/NHDPlus
Reach

1 km/catchment
/NHDPlus Reach

Short-range +
Downscaled GFS

Downscaled &
bias-corrected CFS
planet

Cycling Frequency

Hourly
Forecast Duration

- 3 hrs

Spatial Discretization & Routing

1km/250m/NHDPlus
Reach

1km/250m/NHDPlus
Reach

Meteorological Forcing
MRMS blend/
Downscaled HRRR
/RAP/NAM blend
HRRR-NAM
bkgnd. Prediction
Hydrologic
with the

Community WRF-Hydro System

air

Thank you.
D. Gochis, gochis@ucar.edu
A. Dugger, adugger@ucar.edu

WRF-Hydro: http://www.ral.ucar.edu/projects/wrf_hydro/
Funding for WRF-Hydro provided by:
NSF, NOAA-OHD, NASA-IDS, DOE-ESM

Hydrologic Prediction with the

Community WRF-Hydro System

air planet