Evaluation of CMORPH Precipitation Products at Fine Space–Time Scales

Abstract

In this study, a comparison of the spatial patterns of high-resolution precipitation products obtained from the Climate Prediction Center?s morphing technique (CMORPH), which is a satellite-only product, and gauge-adjusted Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) rainfall observations is performed using a variety of statistical techniques for the Little Washita watershed region in Oklahoma for a 3-yr period. Results show that 1) the performance statistics of CMORPH show tremendous variability from one hour to the next, suggesting that the performance statistics are dynamic in time, and therefore each satellite rainfall product should be accompanied by an error product to make it more meaningful; 2) CMORPH is positively biased in summer and negatively biased in winter, consistent with the findings of previous studies; 3) CMORPH spatial fields tend to be smoother than NEXRAD output; 4) the errors are temporally correlated, in particular within the range from 1 to 6 accumulation hours, implying that averaging CMORPH products over these time scales does not reduce the errors significantly; and 5) the errors become less correlated in time as the averaging time scale increases to the range from 6 to 24 h.