Demonstrating a Probabilistic Quantitative Precipitation Estimate for Evaluating Precipitation Forecasts in Complex Terrain

Abstract

Accurate quantitative precipitation estimates (QPEs) at high spatial and temporal resolution are difficult to obtain in regions of complex terrain due to the large spatial heterogeneity of orographically enhanced precipitation, sparsity of gauges, precipitation phase variations, and terrain effects that impact the quality of remotely sensed estimates. The large uncertainty of QPE in these regions also makes the evaluation of high-resolution quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs) challenging, as it can be difficult to choose a reference QPE that is reliable at both high and low elevations. In this paper we demonstrate a methodology to combine information from multiple high-resolution hourly QPE products to evaluate QPFs from NOAA’s High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model in a region of Northern California. The methodology uses the quantiles of monthly QPE distributions to determine a range of hourly precipitation that correspond to “good,” “possible,” “underestimated,” or “overestimated” QPFs. In this manuscript, we illustrate the use of the methodology to evaluate QPFs for seven atmospheric river events that occurred during the 2016–17 wet season in Northern California. Because the presence of frozen precipitation is often not captured by traditional QPE products, we evaluate QPFs both for all precipitation, and with likely frozen precipitation excluded. The methodology is shown to provide useful information to evaluate model performance while taking into account the uncertainty of available QPE at various temporal and spatial scales. The potential of the technique to evaluate changes between model versions is also shown.