Distributed hydrological modelling using radar precipitation

The question of the utility of the operational US National Weather Service Weather Surveillance Radar 1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) is posed. To address this question, this work presents a hydrological model which allows for spatially varying model parameters. This particular distributed model incorporates components that are adaptations of operational models used often in a spatially-lumped manner to produce estimates of soil water, runoff and streamflow. A geographic information system is used to sub-divide the study basin into small subcatchment units with areas of up to a few hundred square kilometres. Soil water accounting and channel routing models are used to generate runoff and streamflow over the network of subcatchments and streams. The application illustrates that operational distributed modelling is feasible with present-day operational data, and that sensitivity analyses are necessary to understand the ramifications of the limitations of such data for operational forecasting with distributed models.