Advances in NCEI's U.S. Hourly Precipitation Dataset for Assessing Extremes in Urban Areas

Abstract:

The NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) Fischer-Porter weighing bucket precipitation gauge network consists of approximately 2000 stations that comprise a subset of the NWS Cooperative Observers Program network. This network has operated since the mid-20^th century, providing one of the longest records of hourly and 15-minute precipitation observations in the U.S. These data are collected and stewarded by NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) via its Hourly Precipitation Dataset, recently released as version 2. Although this dataset provides an important source of data for many hydrological applications including understanding trends and variability in the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events, assessing trends in urban areas requires increasing its spatial density. There are more in situ networks operated by NOAA and other organizations providing hourly and sub-hourly observations that can be used to improve spatial and temporal coverage in the U.S. and its urban areas. Many of these are acquired via the NWS Hydrometeorological Automated Data System (HADS) and archived at NCEI. An overview is provided of NCEI’s efforts to integrate more than 5000 additional hourly precipitation observations from HADS into its U.S. Hourly Precipitation Dataset. Highlights of an analysis providing additional perspectives on observed variability and trends in U.S. precipitation extremes in urban areas using this higher density dataset is provided.