Section 2.0 contains a detailed description of
the instrumentation, siting, and algorithms used by the source network to
collect the data. Section 2.1 contains a
detailed description of the format of the composite dataset. See Section 2.2 for information on data
processing, and Section 3.0 below for the
quality control processing performed by the National Center for Atmospheric
Research/Earth Observing Laboratory (NCAR/EOL) on this dataset. Section 4.0 contains references.
2.0 Detailed Data Description
2.0.1 Army Range Dugway Proving Grounds (DPG)
The Army Range Dugway Proving Grounds (DPG) in Utah uses the Four
Dimensional Weather Station (4DWX) System (4DWX, 2006
).
The Four-Dimensional (4DWX) System is the product of eight years of
research and development sponsored largely by the U.S. Army Test and
Evaluation Command (ATEC), and is accredited for operational use at seven
test ranges. Through the use of new capabilities in high-resolution
mesoscale modeling, short-term thunderstorm prediction, multi-dimensional
integrated displays, and fine-scale climatological analysis tools, the
ranges now provide test customers with more accurate go/no-go guidance.
There are 3 stations included in this NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite:
dpg_s1, dpg_s8, and dpg_s9. The data were reported in UTC time. Station dpg_s1
reported data every five minutes, while the rest of the stations reported every
fifteen minutes. NCAR/EOL accumulated the precipitation to hourly totals.
2.0.2 Army Range Ft. Huachuca Proving Grounds (EPG)
The Army Range Electronic Proving Grounds (EPG) is located at Ft. Huachuca
in Arizona. It uses the Four Dimensional Weather Station (4DWX) System
(4DWX, 2006).
The Four-Dimensional (4DWX) System is the product of eight years of
research and development sponsored largely by the U.S. Army Test and
Evaluation Command (ATEC), and is accredited for operational use at seven
test ranges. Through the use of new capabilities in high-resolution
mesoscale modeling, short-term thunderstorm prediction, multi-dimensional
integrated displays, and fine-scale climatological analysis tools, the
ranges now provide test customers with more accurate go/no-go guidance.
There are 15 stations included in this NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite.
The EPG stations reported data every fifteen minutes. NCAR/EOL accumulated
the precipitation to hourly totals. The data were reported in UTC time.
2.0.3 Army Range White Sands Missile Range
The Army Range White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico uses the Four
Dimensional Weather Station (4DWX) System (4DWX, 2006
). The Four-Dimensional (4DWX) System is the product of eight years of
research and development sponsored largely by the U.S. Army Test and
Evaluation Command (ATEC), and is accredited for operational use at seven
test ranges. Through the use of new capabilities in high-resolution
mesoscale modeling, short-term thunderstorm prediction, multi-dimensional
integrated displays, and fine-scale climatological analysis tools, the
ranges now provide test customers with more accurate go/no-go guidance.
There are 17 stations included in this NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite.
The WSMR stations reported data every fifteen minutes. NCAR/EOL
accumulated the precipitation to hourly totals. The data were reported in
UTC time.
2.0.4 Army Range Yuma Proving Ground
The Army Range Yuma Proving Grounds (YPG) in Arizona uses the Four
Dimensional Weather Station (4DWX) System (4DWX, 2006
). The Four-Dimensional (4DWX) System is the product of eight years of
research and development sponsored largely by the U.S. Army Test and
Evaluation Command (ATEC), and is accredited for operational use at seven
test ranges. Through the use of new capabilities in high-resolution
mesoscale modeling, short-term thunderstorm prediction, multi-dimensional
integrated displays, and fine-scale climatological analysis tools, the
ranges now provide test customers with more accurate go/no-go guidance.
There are 8 stations included in this NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite.
The YPG stations reported data every fifteen minutes. NCAR/EOL accumulated
the precipitation to hourly totals. The data were reported in UTC time.
"The Flood Control District of Maricopa County [Arizona] operates a 24-hour
rain, stream, and weather gage network, which provides "real time"
information to the County and many other agencies about rainfall, storm
water runoff, and weather conditions in Maricopa County."
"This network operates in the National Weather Service ALERT (Automated
Local Evaluation in Real Time) format, and is commonly referred to as
an ALERT system. In addition to rainfall and streamflow, gages measure
temperature, humidity, wind speed, barometric pressure, wind direction,
and solar radiation."
"The ALERT system uses "automatic" telemetry gages for data collection.
This means that the gages transmit their information to the District
base computer via VHF radio. The computer can then quickly compile the
information and display it on video screens. The automatic gages are
powered by 12-volt batteries, which are recharged using small solar
panels attached to the top or sides of the gages."
(FCD, 2006)
The network maintains a collection of automatic rain gages distributed
in and around the county. The data are collected on an event basis.
The NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite only contains the rainfall
measurements.
NCAR/EOL determined the hourly data by accumulating data to the hour and
calculating differences from the running accumulation. There were instances in
the data when the accumulation period was not the expected .03 or .04 inches.
These precipitation values were flagged with the questionable flag of '4' by
NCAR/EOL for the time period
covered by the difference. On the occasion where the difference is enclosed
within the same hour, the value was not flagged.
There are 275 stations included in this NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation
Composite.
More information on the Maricopa County ALERT network can be found at http://www.fcd.maricopa.gov/Services/ALERT/default.asp.
"Each AZMET weather station is controlled by a Campbell Scientific Inc.
datalogger. The sampling rate is every 10 seconds. At the end of each
hour, the datalogger processes and stores all the sampled measurements
for that hour. Rain and solar measurements are totalized. Soil temps
are point measurements taken on the hour, and all other readings are
averaged from measurements during the hour. An AZMET hour starts at
one second after the hour and goes to the top of the next hour. For
example, the data listed for the 8:00 hour are measurements from
7:00:01 to 8:00:00. At midnight, the datalogger processes all the 10
second measurements, picks out the daily maximums and minimums, and
calculates the daily averages, and totals. An AZMET day begins one
second after midnight."(AZMET, 2006)
Each AZMET station uses one of the following precipitation sensors.
AZMET also records temperature, relative humidity, soil temperature, solar
radiation, wind speed and wind direction. More information on these
sensors can be found at http://cals.arizona.edu/azmet/sensor.html. The site
describes the instrumentation of the stations and how the data was collected."
Presently, the Mohave County ALERT (Automated Local Evaluation in Real
Time) Flood Warning System consists of sixty fully automated sites
including nine repeaters and thirteen full weather stations.
Fifty-eight of the sites have the capability of receiving and reporting
precipitation data in either .01" or .04" increments depending on the
size of the tipping bucket. Two of the sites located in the higher
elevations of the Hualapai Mountains and one site located on Interstate
40 at milepost 113 monitor road surface temperature and road surface
moisture (conductivity). Twenty-two of the sites have the ability to
report stream flow data by use of a pressure transducer (Stream Gage
PT) which is installed in the bottom of the dry wash or stream bed.
This device senses the pressure exerted from the water surrounding it
and instantaneously transmits the information to the base station. The
stream and precipitation gages are "event driven", meaning they report
in real-time or immediately as the data is collected at the site. All
of the full weather stations update their sensor data on a timed basis,
typically every thirty minutes. The primary funding for the continued
growth of the ALERT System has come from the Flood Control District and
from the Highway User Revenue Funds (HURF).
The base station which receives all of the data in "real-time" from the
network uses DataWise software which was developed by DEC DataSystems.
(DEC, 2006)
This software provides the ability to collect and manage weather
related raw data values from all of the sites within the network. This
data is used to assess potential flooding threats throughout Mohave
County and trigger a response from emergency personnel. Pre-set alarm
values are defined in the software that when met, provide notification
to personnel via alpha pagers. Recipients of these alarms include the
Traffic Control Division, Emergency Management and the Sheriffs Office.
All of the data that is collected throughout the network is transmitted
to the National Weather Service Office in Las Vegas, Nevada from the
Hayden Peak Repeater on a frequency of 169.425 MHz. This data provides
the Weather Service with the ability to compare actual ground
conditions with those observed on radar, thus enhancing the ability to
issue weather watches and warnings.
(Mohave, 2006)
The rain gages are tipping bucket type and are set to tip at 1mm (0.04 inch)
intervals. All precipitation gages are approximately 10 feet above the ground
surface.
NCAR/EOL determined the hourly data by accumulating data to the hour and
calculating differences from the running accumulation. There were instances in
the data when the accumulation period was not the expected .03 or .04 inches.
These precipitation values were flagged with the questionable flag of '4'
by NCAR/EOL for the time period
covered by the difference. On the occasion where the difference is enclosed
within the same hour, the value was not flagged.
NCAR/EOL determined the hourly data by accumulating data to the hour and
calculating differences from the running accumulation. There were
instances in the data when the accumulation period was not the expected .03
or .04 inches. These precipitation values were flagged with the questionable
flag of '4' by NCAR/EOL for the time period covered by the difference. On the
occasion where the
difference is enclosed within the same hour, the value was not flagged.
Instrumentation Information
Precipitation gauges come from two vendors; HydroLynx Systems, Inc. and
High Sierra Electronics.
All rain gauges are 1 millimeter tipping buckets with 12-inch diameter
collection funnels. The one at Mingus Mountain (ID# 195) has an
electronically heated tipping bucket to melt snow.
Most rain gauges, as well as most with stream gauges are 10 feet above
ground. Those listed below are the exceptions with height from ground to
top of collection funnel:
Equipment Description
The ALERT weather station vendor was High Sierra Electronics. Each sensor
that is part of an ALERT weather station is assigned its own sensor
identification number. The system comes setup so that each sensor reports
independently of the others based on an "event" such as a tip of the
tipping bucket or, an amount of change from the previous value. A
modification can be made to settings on the system logic board such that
some the sensors report in sync at fixed intervals. Temperature, relative
humidity, barometric pressure, and peak wind speed for the past 15 minutes
can be set this way. In our case, this was done on July 31st with a
reporting interval of 15 minutes. Sustained wind speed and direction, as
well as precipitation, cannot be set to report in fixed intervals because
they report "events". In the case of the sustained wind, it is actually 1
km of wind run which triggers a report. Below are links with
specifications and diagrams of the weather station equipment. It should be
noted that the heights of the sensors are different than other automated
observing systems such as ASOS and AWOS. For instance, the anemometer is
positioned approximately 13-14 feet above the ground instead of 10 meters
(~33 feet). The temperature and relative humidity sensor sits
approximately 11-12 feet above the ground and the tipping bucket is about
10 feet above the ground.
(High Sierra Electronics, 2006)
Data
The exact start and end dates of the data vary for each station. For
Wellton, the data run from June 10th through September 24th of 2004. For
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, the data span June 3rd through
September 30th of 2004. The Ajo station dataset has a shorter span than
the other two sites and is run from June 21st through September 30th.
Quality Control Procedures Applied by Data Source
The data were obtained from each station's datalogger except at Ajo where
it was taken from a database on the computer that is first in line to
receive the data. The primary checks performed on the data were for gross
values and discontinuity. Automated routines were run to flag values which
were unrealistic (gross value) and/or abrupt transient changes
(discontinuity). All quality control was performed by the principal
investigator and every value of each parameter was inspected 'manually'
after automated routines were run. Some of the automated flags were
removed and other flags assigned as part of this process where a human eye
examined all of the data.
The flags that were used by the NOAA/NWS ALERT Network are 'Bad',
'Questionable', and 'Okay'. Most
values were not flagged one way or another and the Q/C column was left
blank. This indicated they were fine. Trends within each parameter were
closely observed from one reading to the next. If it differed from an
anticipated trend (accounting for diurnal cycles) then it was evaluated
within a larger context of the other parameters in order to identify
causative mechanisms such as wind shifts, precipitation, etc.
A very small number of values were erroneous and were labeled as 'Bad.''
The values were then assigned '-99.' These occurred during the initial
equipment installation and at the mid-summer maintenance visit. If a value
initially looked suspicious at first glance but corresponded to a wind
shift and/or precipitation, and had continuity, it was flagged as 'Okay.'
If a value/s were abruptly different from values before and/or after, but
it was not meteorologically unreasonable, then it was flagged as
'Questionable.'
A conservative approach was taken to try to differentiate possible sensor
noise from actual meteorological signal. Thus, relatively small changes
could trigger a 'Questionable' flag. In addition to checking for
discontinuities between individual readings, broader trends were also
examined. For instance, if temperatures climbed significantly before
sunrise and/or fell significantly before sunrise and there were no apparent
wind shifts (indicative of convection) or precipitation then the values
would be flagged as 'Questionable.'
Overall, the data look rather reliable. Many of the values flagged as
'Questionable' are quite possibly due to microscale processes which can
lead to curious fluctuations. For more information, see
http://data.eol.ucar.edu/datafile/nph-get/82.141/Readme_data_documentation.doc.
This dataset is a collection of data from many networks. The data are fed to the
National Center for Atmospheric Research / Earth Observing Laboratory (NCAR/EOL)
over the LDM by the FSL Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS).
Some of these networks are themselves collections of data from unrelated
sources. Each of these networks/subnetworks can contain different frequency data
and different parameters. NCAR/EOL converts all of this data to NCAR/EOL Surface
QC format. This NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite dataset contains only
precipitation. "Nominal" hourly surface mesonet observations for the NAME
domain and time period are included in the dataset
"FSL MADIS Hourly Data (NCAR/EOL surface QC format) [NCAR/EOL].
Special surface mesonet observations are located in the dataset
"FSL MADIS Specials Data (NCAR/EOL surface QC format) [NCAR/EOL]".
2833 stations from the MADIS LDM feed
are included in this NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite.
Conventions
MADIS QC flags are not carried forward to NCAR/EOL format. However,
the MADIS QC summary value X "Failed QC stage 1", which is a gross limit check,
has been used to mask out extremely unlikely data. If the data fails this check,
it is set to missing.
The hourly parameter value given in this composite is the value closest to
the hour that falls at or after 45 minutes and before (but not at) 15 minutes
after the hour. To find hourly precipitation, we start with the time of the
hourly value, which is not necessarily on the hour, and subtract 1 hour, then
find the record that is closest to this new time and within 5 minutes and use
that to calculate hourly precipitation. So hourly precipitation reported in
the QCF records formed by this code can in actuality be precipitation for the
previous 55 to 65 minutes.
For more information on these networks, see the
FSL/MADIS Surface Network Information webpage
(FSL, 2004).
The Unidata Local Data Manager (LDM)
(Unidata, 2002 ) distributes World Meteorological
Organization (WMO) Surface data. These data are ingested by NCAR/EOL in
ASCII WMO meteorological message structure format
(NOAA/NWS, 2002). The primary feedset name is "WMO"
which includes Public Product Service (PPS), Domestic Data Service (DDS), High
resolution Data Service (HDS), and International Data Service (IDS) feedtypes.
Only products that match the patterns ^S[AP].* .... ([0-3][0-9])([0-2][0-9])
and ^SX..81 .... ([0-3][0-9])([0-2][0-9]) are collected. In these patterns,
S stands for surface, A for Aviation Routine Reports (FM 15 - METAR), P for
Special aviation weather reports (FM 16 - SPECI), and X for miscellaneous
text records. Only hourly METAR data are included in this dataset. For
information on the METAR format see the
ASOS User's Guide,
appendix, and
ready reference guide.
(NOAA, 2003).
Observing, reporting, and coding standards for surface-based meteorological
observations from all federal agencies are defined in the
Federal Meteorological Handbook 1. Only hourly precipitation
is included in this NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite.
Not all LDM Surface METAR mesonet stations report precipitation.
Special surface mesonet observations and METAR data that do not fall on the hour
are available in the dataset '
LDM Surface METAR Specials Data (NCAR/EOL surface QC format) [NCAR/EOL]'.
For 20 minute METAR stations, the observation that falls between 15 minutes
before the hour and the hour, inclusive, is included in this dataset. If there
is no observation in this time period, then the observation closest to
the hour and falling between 1 minute and 15 minutes after the hour is
included in this dataset. All other observations are included in the
'LDM Surface METAR Hourly Data (NCAR/EOL surface QC
format) [NCAR/EOL]' dataset. There are 1089 LDMSFCMETR
stations in this NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite.
Instrumentation
NMSU Standard Stations contain the following instrumentation:
Flags '*' and ' ' set by NMSU were translated to NCAR/EOL Quality Control Flags as follows:
The rainrate was obtained from the ETL STI optical raingauge (Model 705), which
had a no rain offset of 0.07 mm/h. This system had an erratic noise level on its
.no rain. offset.
The data was recorded in 5 minute intervals. NCAR/EOL accumulated the data to
hourly for the NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite.
The ISS subsystems are integrated physically and digitally. A Sun
workstation is the heart of the digital integration. The Sun is the center
of the ISS computer network and serves to collect, display, and archive
data from each of the subsystems. The Sun is connected to personal
computers in both the radiosonde sounding system and the profiler/RASS
sounding system via SAMBA. Data from the surface observing station is
routed serially via RS-232 directly into the Sun workstation. The Sun can
also format data and control data flow for transmission to sites well
removed from the ISS site.
The enhanced surface observing station consists of two instrumented towers
and a rain gauge. A ten-meter tower is instrumented with wind velocity
sensors as well as pressure, temperature, and humidity sensors. A separate
one-meter tower is typically instrumented with radiometers. The data are
formatted and processed by a Campbell CR10x datalogger. The datalogger is
programmable. It is typically configured to generate one-minute average
data which are sent via RS-232 to the Sun workstation.
The ISS sites are housed in a standard 20-foot sea container modified to
serve as an equipment shelter and laboratory for project scientists and
engineers. The modified sea container houses the Sun workstation, the
profiler/RASS computer, the balloon borne sounding system computer, as well
as storage for expendables, disks, and tapes. The wind profiler and RASS
speakers are typically placed on the ground outside of the container. The
surface meteorological instrumentation and Campbell datalogger are outside
away from the container.
The ISS surface meteorological instrument installation includes several
sensors mounted on two separate towers as well as a rain gauge mounted
independently. An anemometer is mounted on the top of a ten-meter tower.
Temperature and humidity sensors are mounted on the end of a one-meter boom
attached to the ten-meter tower at two meters above the surface. The
temperature and humidity sensors are aspirated and protected with a
radiation shield. The pressure sensor is housed in the box containing the
Campbell CR 10x datalogger. That box is mounted on the ten-meter tower at
one meter above the surface and a "pressure port" is connected and mounted
at 2 meters. The "pressure port" reduces noise in the pressure sensor do to
the venturi effect of from the wind.
The radiation sensors are mounted on a one meter boom on the top of a
separate one-meter tower. The standard ISS radiation sensors include an
up-looking Eppley PSP solar radiation sensor, Eppley PIR sensor and a net
radiation sensor. In situations which require more complete radiation
measurements, additional sensors can be added.
The output from all the sensors is directed to the Campbell datalogger
for processing. The Campbell datalogger, which is independently
programmable, typically generates one-minute average data which are sent
via RS-232 to the ISS Sun workstation. The data input to the Campbell
datalogger are five-second sample data.
The ISS statues used a Texas Electronics TE525 tipping bucket rain gauge
for the measurement of rainfall. The rain gauge resolution is 0.254 mm. The
gauge is typically positioned 1.5 meters above the ground about 7 or 8
meters from the ten-meter tower (NCAR/EOL, 2006).
Data from cooperators networks such as NCEP/EMC has hundreds of
reporting locations which change from incremental to accumulator and back to
incremental. Others changed a couple of times and have now
settled on accumulators.
Anyone using this data must be aware of the dynamic changes in the
network of sites that are processed by HADS and be aware of the
potential lag time from when a change is implemented to when NCEP/EMC becomes
aware of the change. This is far, far from a stable environment.
To help users in identifying these changes, NCAR/EOL checks the
NCEP/EMC hourly precipitation data for possible accumulated values and
resets the NCAR/EOL Quality Control flags for all "unchecked", "good",
and "trace" accumulated precipitation values in the NCEP/EMC network to
"questionable". For this purpose, NCAR/EOL defines accumulated precipitation
to be six identical, sequential hourly precipitation values potentially
followed by additional identical values or values that increase over time.
The following instruments were deployed at the Estacion Obispo profiler
site: an S-Band (2875-MHz) Vertically Pointing Profiler which measures the
vertical structure of precipitation & microphysics,
a UHF (449-MHz) Vertical Air Motion Profiler which estimates the vertical air
motion during precipitation,
a UHF (915-MHz) Boundary Layer Wind Profiler which estimates the horizontal
winds up to ~5 km, a Cloud Boundary Ceilometer which estimates the altitude of
cloud base, a Surface Joss-Waldvogel Disdrometer which estimates the surface
rain drop size distribution, and a 10-m Meteorological Tower collecting
meteorological measurements at 2-m & 10-m. All instruments were funded by
the NOAA OGP-PACS/GAPP Program
More information on the NOAA/AL Obispo Supersite for
NAME can be found at:
http://www.etl.noaa.gov/programs/2004/name/precip/
"The tipping bucket raingages used in [NERN] is the Texas Electronics TR-525USW
which is calibrated at 0.254 mm (0.01 in) per tip. Factory calibration of the
raingage is reported to yield an accuracy of +/- 1% at a rain rate of
25.4 mm/hr. Field calibration will be performed in coordination with the
downloading and servicing of each gauge. Each tip of the bucket
or "event", triggers an electronic signal which is then stored on an Onset
Computer Corporation HOBO Event datalogger. Rainfall events are
stored on the datalogger until manually downloaded. As of this writing there
are no remote communication devices attached to the raingages. The HOBO
datalogger has an 8000 event storage capacity which results in the effective
storage of 2032 mm of precipitation. This quantity is substantially higher
than the mean annual precipitation in the NAME region. However, it is not
guaranteed that this capacity will never be exceeded in a particular year.
Thus, the entire network is scheduled to be downloaded at least twice a year
to preserve as much data as possible. Technical specifications on both
the raingage and the datalogger can be obtained from the vendor's websites
at the following URL's:
"More information about the network can be found in a technical document
provided by the authors:
Gochis, D.G., J.-C. Leal, W.J. Shuttleworth, C. Watts, 2005:
NAME Surface Raingage Network Station Files. Technical document available
from the authors."
DATA COLLECTION AND PROCESSING
"Rainfall data is collected at a minimum of twice per year. As each gage is
visited the data is downloaded to a laptop computer and the gage is visually
inspected for damage, obstruction or anything that may inhibit the proper
function of the gage. A instrument log is kept which details the status and
any observed problems with each raingage."
"The raw rainfall data is stored as rainfall events which correspond to tips
of the tipping bucket mechanism. This data is reprocessed into the
following equal interval periods:
"Quality control of the tipping bucket gage data is performed by visual
screening of the raw data time series and by direct comparison with manually
operated cooperative raingages which are collocated at approximately 25% of the
gage sites."
"As of Feb. 2005, an automated gross error check has been implemented into
the data processing algorithms. This routine flags 05min rainfall values
which are in excess of 12mm (=144 mm/hr). These 'extreme' events are then
manually examined in order to determine whether or not the event was in
fact plausible. Additional details of the gross error check methodology
and full details of the quality control procedures and the results
of the quality control assessment can be found in a Quality Control
Document prepared by the investigators:
Gochis, D.G., J.-C. Leal, A. Jimenez, 2005: NAME Tipping
Bucket Raingage Network Quality Control Log. Technical Document
available from the authors or from NCAR/EOL.
(NERN, 2006) "
Only hourly precipitation values from 86 stations are included in this
NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite.
This NAME 2004 Precipitation Hourly Multi-Network Composite [NCAR/EOL]
contains seven metadata parameters and three data parameters. The metadata
parameters describe the date/time, network, station, and location at which the
data was collected. The three data parameters repeat once for each UTC hour from
0000 through UTC hour 2300. Data reported for a designated hour represents data
collected during the previous hour. All times are reported in UTC, and
precipitation data values are reported in millimeters. A Quality Flag and a QC
Code are assigned to each data value during the National Center for Atmospheric
Research/Earth Observing Laboratory [NCAR/EOL] gross limit checking.
For a list of possible Quality Flag and QC Code values
see the Quality Control Section 3.0. The table below details each parameter.
NCAR/EOL checks the NCEP/EMC hourly precipitation data for
possible accumulated values and resets the NCAR/EOL Quality
Control flags for all "unchecked", "good", and "trace"
accumulated precipitation values in the NCEP/EMC network to
"questionable". For more information on the quality control
performed on this network by NCAR/EOL, please see section 3.0 below.
Gross limit checks were used to determine the quality of the data in
this NAME 2004 Precipitation Hourly Multi-Network Composite [NCAR/EOL]. Data
values less than 120 millimeters were flagged as good. Any data value greater
than or equal to 120 millimeters but less than 150 millimeters was flagged
as questionable. Any data value greater than or equal to 150 millimeters was
flagged as unlikely. Several questionable and unlikely data values were
also manually inspected. After inspection, the quality control code and
flag may have been manually updated to better reflect the likelihood of the
actual occurrence of the precipitation value based on an iso et analysis.
NCAR/EOL checks the NCEP/EMC hourly precipitation data for possible
accumulated values and resets the NCAR/EOL Quality Control flags
for all "unchecked", "good", and "trace" accumulated precipitation
values in the NCEP/EMC network to "questionable". For this purpose,
NCAR/EOL defines accumulated precipitation to be six identical, sequential
hourly precipitation values potentially followed by additional identical
values or values that increase over time. The data were never changed, only
flagged. Tables 1 and 2 contain the quality control flags and codes,
respectively. Table 3 lists the applied gross limits.
After the datasets were merged to form the NAME 2004 Precipitation
Hourly Multi-Network Composite [NCAR/EOL], a statistics program was executed to
ensure that the quality of the individual datasets had been retained.
AZMET, cited 2006: AZMET Sensors [Available online from
http://cals.arizona.edu/azmet/sensor.html]
DEC, 2006:DEC Data Systems [Available online from
http://www.decdatasystems.com/
FCD, cited 2006: Flood Control District of Maricopa County
[Available online at
http://www.fcd.maricopa.gov/Services/ALERT/default.asp]
FSL, cited 2004: MADIS Surface Network Information
[Available online from
http://www-sdd.fsl.noaa.gov/MADIS/network_info.html]
High Sierra Electronics, cited 2006: Spec Sheets (PDF) [Available
online from http://www.highsierraelectronics.com/spec_sheets_PDF/Model_####.pdf]
Mohave, cited 2006: History of the Mohave County ALERT Flood Warning
System [Available online from
http://weather.co.mohave.az.us/DWGraphics/History.htm
NCAR/EOL, cited 2006: Integrated Sounding System (ISS)
[Available online from
http://www.atd.ucar.edu/rtf/facilities/iss/iss.html
NCDC, 2003: National Climatic Data Center Data Documentation for Hourly
Precipitation Data, TD-3240. [Available online from
http://data.eol.ucar.edu/datafile/nph-get/82.141/td3240.pdf]
NERN, cited 2006: NAME Event Rain gauge Network [ Available online from
http://data.eol.ucar.edu/datafile/nph-get/82.141/NAME_sfc_raingages_20050215.txt
NMSU, cited 2006: New Mexico Climate Center [Available online from
http://weather.nmsu.edu/]
NOAA, National Weather Service, Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS), 2003: ASOS User's Guide
NOAA/NWS, cited 2002: WMO Message structure 2000 Paraphrased Version
[Available online from http://www.nws.noaa.gov/tg/head.html]
Unidata, cited 2002: Unidata LDM [Available online from
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/ldm/].
2.0.5 Mesonet Arizona Maricopa County ALERT Precipitation Data
2.0.6 Arizona Meteorological Network (AZMET) Precipitation Data
The Arizona Meteorological Network (AZMET) is a collection of automated
weather stations across the state of Arizona. There are 28 stations
included in the NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite.
Measurement Instrument Model Sensor Type Siting Accuracy
----------- ---------------- ----------- ------ --------
Precipitation Sierra Misco Tipping Gage Top +/-1mm
RG2501 Rain Bucket With At ~43 cm
Gage Magnetic Above
ReedSwitch surface
Texas Electronics Tipping Gage Top +/-1mm
Model # TE525 Bucket With At ~43 cm
Rain Gage Magnetic Above
Reed Switch surface
2.0.7 Mesonet Arizona Mohave County ALERT Precipitation Data
The Automated Local Evaluation in Real Time (ALERT) network in Mohave
County, Arizona maintains a collection of automatic rain gages distributed in
and around the county. There are 22 stations included in this NAME 2004 Hourly
Precipitation Composite. More information on the Mohave County ALERT network
can be found at http://weather.co.mohave.az.us/perl/DWReports.pl.
2.0.8 Mesonet Arizona Pima County ALERT Precipitation Data
The Automated Local Evaluation in Real Time (ALERT) network in Pima County,
Arizona maintains a collection of automatic rain gages distributed in and around
the county. The data are collected on an event basis. There are 84 stations
included in this NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite.
2.0.9 Mesonet Arizona Yavapai County ALERT Precipitation Data
The Automated Local Evaluation in Real Time (ALERT) network in Yavapai
County, Arizona maintains a collection automatic rain gages distributed in
and around the county. The data are collected on an event basis. There
are 52 stations included in this NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite.
More information on the Yavapai Country ALERT network can be found at
http://www.co.yavapai.az.us/YavEnterpriseSoln/FloodControl/IntroPage.aspx.
150 - Sedona Airport (12 feet above ground)
175 - Dry Creek Levee (4 feet above top of levee)
180 - Merry Go Round (NEW - 12 feet above ground)
195 - Mingus Mountain (12 feet above ground on top of building)
300 - Upper Goldwater Lake (4 feet above top of dam)
310 - Lower Goldwater Lake (4 feet above top of dam)
325 - White Spar Campground (16 feet above lowest adjacent grade)
335 - YCFCD (12 feet above ground)
360 - Haisley Repeater (16 feet above ground)
385 - Watson Lake (4 feet above top of dam)
400 - Prescott Valley PD Yard (12 feet above ground)
430 - Cottonwood PW Yard (12 feet above ground)
2.0.10 NOAA/NWS ALERT Network Precipitation Data [Jamison]
The NOAA/NWS ALERT Network data consisted of three stations in Arizona: Ajo,
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and Wellton. Although the discussion
below contains reference to all data parameters collected, NCAR/EOL only
reports hourly precipitation in this NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite.
NOAA/NWS performed QC and found all the data in the NAME time and area of
interest to be O.K. NCAR/EOL does not report the NOAA/NWS QC flag.
See Section 3.0 below for the
quality control processing performed by the National Center for Atmospheric
Research/Earth Observing Laboratory (NCAR/EOL) on this dataset.
http://data.eol.ucar.edu/datafile/nph-get/82.141/Model_5728.pdf
2.0.11 Mesonet FSL MADIS Precipitation Data [NCAR/EOL]
2.0.12 Mesonet LDM Surface METAR Precipitation Data
2.0.13 Mesonet New Mexico State University Precipitation Data [NCAR/EOL]
The New Mexico Monitored Climate Station Network is a network of stations located across the state of New Mexico.
Information about the network and pictures of the stations are available at the NMSU Network home page (NMSU,
2006). There are 129 NMSU stations in this NAME 2004 Hourly Surface Composite. The data source
provided hourly data in MST and did not switch to and from Daylight Savings Time.
Precipitation
Model: Campbell Scientific Model TE525 Rain Gage
Sensor Type: Tipping Bucket With Event Counter
Siting: Gage Top At 43 cm Above Surface
Accuracy: +/-1mm
# * -> E
# ' ' -> U
2.0.14 Mexican Navy SEMAR R/V Altair Meteorological and Navigational Parameters Precipitation Data
The Mexican Navy SEMAR Research Vessel (R/V) Altair had a cruise in the Gulf of
California from 7 July to 12 August 2004, with a short stop in port from 22 July
to 25 July where data was not recorded. The ship remained at approximately
23.5 N, 108 W except when traveling.
2.0.15 Mexico Agriculture Automated Weather Station Precipitation Data (Sonora)
The Mexico Agriculture Automated Weather Station network is located in Sonora
Mexico. There are 20 stations included in the NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation
Composite. The data were provided in MST and did not switch and from Daylight
Savings Time. NCAR/EOL accumulated the raw 10min data into hourly readings.
2.0.16 Mexico Navy SEMAR Automated Weather Station Precipitation Data
The Mexico Navy SEMAR Automated Weather Station network is a set of stations
maintained by the Mexican Navy along the coast and islands of Mexico along the
Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of California, and the Pacific Ocean. There are 23
stations included in the NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite. The data
were provided in UTC time. For more
information on the Mexico Navy SEMAR network, see their web page at
http://meteorologia.semar.gob.mx/. It is in Spanish.
2.0.17 Mexico SMN-CNA Automated Weather Station Precipitation Data
The Mexico Servicio Meteorólogico Nacional (SMN) - Comisión
Nacional del Agua (CNA) Automated Weather Station network is a collection of
stations maintained by the Mexican national weather service throughout Mexico.
There are 84 stations included in the NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite.
The data were provided in UTC time.
For more information on the Mexico SMN-CNA network, see their web site at
http://smn.cna.gob.mx/.
It is in Spanish.
2.0.18 NCAR Integrated Sounding System (ISS) Precipitation Data [NCAR/EOL]
The NCAR Integrated Sounding System (ISS) was located at three sites in Mexico
for the NAME 2004 project: Puerto Penasco, Los Mochis, and Kino Bay. The sites
recorded 1 minute resolution data that NCAR/EOL accumulated to form hourly
records for the NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation Composite.
2.0.19 NCDC RecRainga Hourly Precipitation
The observations in the NCDC Hourly Precipitation data set (TD 3240) were taken
by observers at principle (primary) stations, secondary stations, and
cooperative observer stations operated by the National Weather Service (NWS) and
the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA). The data are a combination of original
observations of hourly and daily accumulated precipitation. Both incremental and
accumulated values are contained in the NAME 2004 Hourly Precipitation
Composite. If an accumulation period began prior to but continued into the
beginning of the NAME 2004 time period, the precipitation values in that
accumulation period were reset to missing values. An accumulation period that
began near the end of the NAME 2004 time period, but continued after the end of
the NAME 2004 time period would also have its precipitation values reset to
missing. For more information on the NCDC Hourly Precipitation dataset, TD 3240,
see (NCDC, 2003).
2.0.20 NCEP/EMC U.S. Gage-only Hourly Precipitation Data [NCAR/EOL]
The Environmental Modeling Center (EMC), previously the Climate Prediction
Center (CPC), is a component of the National Centers for Environmental
Prediction (NCEP). The NCEP/EMC Hourly Precipitation dataset was formed by
extracting incremental precipitation values that fell on the hour. The value
reported for any hourly observation represents data collected during the
previous 60 minutes. All raw precipitation data, including data that do not fall
on the hour, can be found on codiac in the
GCIP/EOP Surface: Precipitation NCEP/EMC Gage Only Hourly Dataset.
2.0.21 NOAA/AL NAME Supersite (Obispo) Meteorological Precipitation Data
The NOAA/AL Supersite (Obispo) was located at 24.28N, 107.16W at 27m above sea
level during the NAME 2004 project from 14 July to 20 September 2004 near the
city of Estacion Obispo in Sonora, Mexico. The site reported 2 minute data
that was accumulated by NCAR/EOL to form hourly records for the NAME 2004 Hourly
Precipitation Composite.
2.0.22 El Puma Mexico Navy Research Vessel (R/V)
The Mexican UNAM Research Vessel (R/V) El Puma had a cruise in the Gulf of
California from 3 August to 17 August 2004. The data source reported that no
rain was reported during the cruise, resulting in all of the precipitation values
for the cruise to be set to 0.00mm.
2.0.23 Northwest Mexico NAME Event Raingage Network (NERN) Hourly Data
"The NAME Event-Based raingage network (NERN) consists of 87 tipping
bucket raingages that have been installed in primarily east-west transects
across the Sierra Madre Occidental in Northwest Mexico. 50 gages were installed
in 2002 and 31 were installed in 2003 and 6 were installed in 2004. The
objectives of the network are to improve the sampling of precipitation at a
variety of elevations across the complex terrain of the Sierra Madre as well as
to provide event based data which permits the calculation of instantaneous rain
rates. Nearly 25% of the new event gages are collocated with existing manually
measured daily precipitation gages operated by the cooperative network of the
Comisión Nacional del Agua (CNA) of Mexico. Collocation permits
cross-validation, quality-control and helps to ensure the safety of the gages.
Detailed logs of the instruments, installation and downloading procedures, and
quality control information are distributed with each data archive submission
and are available from the investigators."
www.texaselectronics.com
www.onsetcomp.com "
5 min
15 min
30 min
1 hr
3 hr
12 hr
24 hr"
2.1 Detailed Format Description
Parameters Units
---------------------- ----------------------------------
Date of Observation UTC
Time of Observation UTC
Network Identifier Abbreviation of platform name
Station Identifier Network Dependent
Latitude Decimal degrees, South is negative
Longitude Decimal degrees, West is negative
Station Occurrence Unitless
Hourly Precip Value Millimeters
Quality Flag See list of Definitions
QC Code See list of Definitions
2.2 Data Remarks
Negative precipitation and values too large to be
represented in the output format were changed to missing
('-999.99') and were assigned the 'C' QC code.
3.0 Quality Control Processing
This precipitation composite was formed from several data
sources. Some of these datasets may have been Quality Controlled
independently by the data sources.
Section 2.0 Detailed Data Description
above indicates which data sources quality controlled their data sets
and whether or not the QC flags assigned by the data source were
carried forward into the NCAR/EOL QC formatted data.
If the QC flags assigned
by the data source are provided in the final composite data set, they
were not overwritten by any gross limit checking done at NCAR/EOL.
Table 1
Quality Control Flag Description
--------------------------- --------------------------------------------
0 No qualifier required
1 Accumulation period
2 End of Accumulation period
3 Deleted value. Original data was unreadable.
4 Trace of precipitation.
5 Probable amount as a result of melting frozen
precipitation.
6 Suspect amount relative to time or period of
occurrence.
7 Missing value
Table 2
QC Code Description
----------------- ------------------------------------------
U Unchecked
G Good
M Normally recorded but missing
D Questionable
B Unlikely
N Not available or Not observed.
X Glitch
E Estimated
C Reported value exceeds output format field
size or was negative precipitation.
T Trace precipitation amount recorded.
I Derived parameter can not be computed due
to insufficient data.
Table 3 - Precipitation Gross Limit Values
Parameter Good Questionable Unlikely
--------- ---- ------------ --------
Daily Precipitation < 120.0 mm >= 120.0 mm >= 150.0 mm
4.0 References
4DWX, cited 2006: 4DWX System and Technology [Available online from
http://www.4dwx.org]
where #### is: