RUNOFF SIMULATION USING RADAR RAINFALL DATA

Rainfall data products generated with the national network of WSR-88D radars are an important new data source provided by the National Weath er Service. Radar-based data include rainfall depth on an hourly basis for grid cells that are nominally 4 km square. The availability of su ch data enables application of improved techniques for rainfall-runoff simulation. A simple quasi-distributed approach that applies a linear runoff transform to gridded rainfall excess has been developed. The a pproach is an adaptation of the Clark conceptual runoff model, which e mploys translation and linear storage. Data development for, and resul ts of, an initial application to a 4160 km(2) watershed in the Midwest ern U.S. are illustrated.