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Items 2006Debris flow project completes first IOP
NSSL is participating in a major research project to help forecasters improve flash flood and debris flow warnings.
Following a week of dry weather, a trough with a strong jet took aim at northern California on December 9, 2006 to begin the first Intensive Operations Period (IOP) for the NOAA/USGS Demonstration Flash-Flood and Debris Flow Early-Warning System Project. The IOP included three separate waves of light-to-moderate precipitation. NSSL’s Shared Mobile Atmospheric Research and Teaching Radar (SMART-R) crew was part of the IOP and collected data at the Foresthill, CA site for 48 hours.
The Demonstration Flash-Flood and Debris Flow Early Warning Project is part of the NOAA Hydrometeorology Testbed, a concept aimed at accelerating the infusion of new technologies, models, and scientific results from the research community into daily forecasting operations of the National Weather Service and its River Forecast Centers. The project began in California in 2004 and will spread to other regions in the coming years to address hydrometeorology problems that are unique to those locations.
The area currently targeted by the project is the Day Fire burn area near Pyramid Lake, CA. The Day Fire was one of the biggest (162,702 acres burned) and longest (September 4 – October 2, 2006) burning brush fires in California history. Areas recently burned by wildfires are particularly susceptible to flash floods and debris flow during rainstorms. Rainfall that is normally absorbed by vegetation can run off almost instantly, causing creeks and drainage areas to flood much earlier and with higher magnitude than normal.
The objective of NSSL’s SMART-R deployment to southern California is to gather very high- resolution rainfall data sets to be used by USGS to refine their thresholds for debris flows. The SMART-R is being used also to evaluate the usefulness of gap filling radars to supplement the NWS’s WSR-88D network radar coverage.
The project is scheduled to run through March, 2007, with participants deploying when there is a forecast of significant rainfall in the area.
Significance: Flooding causes more deaths and more damage in the United States than any other severe weather related event. The Hydrometeorology Testbed will improve forecasts of floods, flash floods, and debris flows by determining the most useful tools for improving precipitation and runoff forecasting methods, saving lives and protecting property.
12/18/06