Numerical Prediction of Precipitation and River Flow over the Russian River Watershed during the January 1995 California Storms

Abstract

Precipitation and river flow during a January 1995 flood event over the Russian River watershed in the northern Coastal Range of California were simulated using the University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Coupled Atmosphere-River Flow Simulation (CARS) System. The CARS System undirectionally links a primitive equation atmospheric mesoscale model to a physically based, fully distributed hydrologic model by employing an automated land analysis system. Using twice-daily National Meteorological Center eta model initial data to provide the large-scale forcing to the mesoscale model, the CARS System has closely simulated the observed river flow during the flooding stage, where the simulated river flow was within 10% of the observed river flow at the Hopland gauge station on the Russian River.