Overview

High Resolution River Discharge Model

The discharge prediction model operating under the Joint Center for Ocean Observing Technology is based on the UNH Water Balance Model (Vorosmarty et al. 1998; Rawlins et al. 2004) run on a daily timestep. Spatially distributed runoff is predicted based on precipitation, air temperature, and land surface characteristics, and is accumulated in the river network to predict discharge throughout New England. Daily forecasts of precipitation and air temperature are input from UNH/AER High-Resolution Weather Forecasts for New England to forecast discharge conditions 48 hours into the future. Runoff and discharge hindcasts are developed daily by rerunning the WBM with updated observed precipitation and air temperature to the most current time step.

The domain focuses on New England, with 9km grid cell resolution, identical to Domain 2 in the UNH/AER Climate Forecast model. Currently, discharge predictions are based on flow accumulation of runoff only. Predicted discharge can be compared with real time observations at selected USGS gauges. Virtual gauging sites are located at the mouth of major watersheds to predict discharge reaching the coastal environment. These virtual gauges incorporate additional runoff located downstream of USGS sites, as well as adjust for model error by assimilating USGS observations from the furthest downstream gauge in each basin. Gridded maps of discharge and runoff are updated daily, and graphical analysis of predicted and observed discharge time series are available for user selected time frames and gauge locations.