Basis for Extending Long-Term Streamflow Forecasts in the Colorado River Basin

Abstract

The National Weather Service (NWS) maintains a collection of computer models used to perform various functions for managing the rivers of the United States. One function of the NWS's river forecast centers is to provide long-term resource forecasts for the main river basins in the United States. By using singular value decomposition (SVD) analysis, the research presented here identifies a new sea surface temperature (SST) index which demonstrates significant, long-lead covariance with streamflow in the Colorado River Basin. This index is compared with other existing climate indices by using the nonparametric rank sum test and by also using the index in a forecasting scenario.