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Data and Information Needs for Decision Making

NOAA/National Weather Service

John Halquist

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River Forecasting along US/Mexico border

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Basin Partners• IBWC/CILA

– International Boundary and Water Commission/ Comision Nacional de Limites y Aguas

– Mirror agencies in US (HQ – El Paso) and Mexico (HQ – Ciudad Juarez)

– Manage the 1944 treaty governing the Rio Grande– Operates two mainstem reservoirs (Amistad and Falcon) and

mainstem stream gauges

• CONAGUA– Comision Nacional Del Agua (National Water Commission of Mexico –

HQ Mexico City)– Operates reservoirs and stream gauging on internal Mexican

tributaries

• SMN – Servicio Nacional de Meteorologico (National Weather Service of Mexico)– Component of CONAGUA– Operates precipitation gauging throughout Mexico– Refurbishing old and deploying new radars in Mexico (potential for two

radars in Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Basin)

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Bi-National Data Exchange Working Group

• Partners– CONAGUA/SMN– IBWC/CILA– NWS– TCEQ – Texas Commission on Environmental Quality– USGS

• Pursuing Need for Automated Real-time Data– Precipitation– River level and flow– Reservoir level and discharges

• Two Meetings in 2011• Developing “Community Data Warehouse”

– Hosted by IBWC– Agencies post and retrieve data as needed– West Gulf RFC posting daily Rio Grande forecasts

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Radar Coverage in Basin

• Effective Total Coverage (Warm Season)

• Radar Beam Heights (Warm Season)

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Precipitation Gaging in Basin

• Automated precipitation data received via satellite • Precipitation data for remainder of

basin received hourly or daily via FTP retrieval from CONAGUA/SMN

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Stream Flow Data in Basin

• Automated stream flow data received via satellite:

• 8 locations on the Rio Conchos tributary of the Rio Grande

• Manual stream flow data received semi-weekly or monthly via IBWC

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CONAGUA/SMN Hourly Precipitation Data

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• ZCZC FTWSHFMX3 SOU• SHFMEX• :• :Automated Weather Station Data mined from SMN• :• :Precip Amounts converted to inches• :• .AR MEXC001 090629 Z DH1300 /PPH 0.00 : OJINAGA - 0.0 mm• .AR MEXC002 090629 Z DH1200 /PPH 0.00 : CHINATU - 0.0 mm• .AR MEXC003 090629 Z DH1300 /PPH 0.00 : VERGEL - 0.0 mm• .AR MEXC004 090629 Z DH1200 /PPH 0.00 : GUACHOCHI - 0.0

mm• .AR MEXC005 090629 Z DH1200 /PPH 0.00 : URIQUE - 0.0 mm

• LDAD

• Estación: OJINAGA, CHIUAHUA• Operada por: SMN• Longitud: 104°28'07" Latitud: 29°32'03" Altitud: 790

• DD/MM/AAAA HH:MM DIRS DIRR VELS VELR TEMP HR PB PREC RAD-SOL• 25/06/2009 13:00 198 210 5.80 7.98 25.5 56 925.4 0.0 192.5• 25/06/2009 14:00 119 150 8.28 14.50 28.8 41 925.8 0.0 396.5• 25/06/2009 15:00 137 171 5.94 11.73 30.9 36 925.7 0.0 621.5• 25/06/2009 16:00 158 186 8.70 18.60 31.8 34 925.3 0.0 788.3• 25/06/2009 17:00 133 153 19.06 34.70 33.7 28 924.8 0.0 919.0• 25/06/2009 18:00 128 155 20.46 35.28 34.6 23 924.4 0.0 989.7• 25/06/2009 19:00 117 151 14.92 27.45 35.3 21 923.5 0.0 996.0• 25/06/2009 20:00 143 166 11.84 25.08 35.9 18 922.7 0.0 951.0

• ./Incoming

• getSMN.tcl • /data/

Incoming/• MEXI.FTWSH

FSMN

• AGTCH - 26.97 106.48

• AQMCH - 31.76 106.51

• BNDCH - 31.32 105.97

• CAGCH - 30.30 107.54

• CCOCH - 27.69 105.17

• CDLCH - 28.20 105.46

• CHACH - 28.65 106.08

• CHUCH - 28.57 106.16

• CLNCH - 27.54 105.39

• cna_master.txt

Collecting CONAGUA/SMN Hourly Data

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CONAGUA/SMN Daily Precipitation Data

• CONAGUA - ftp to NWS Southern Region

• Daily observed data• SHEF encoded• WGRFC - retrieves

from Southern Region• Ingests into local

database

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NWS Local Offices in Basin

• West Gulf RFC provides all river forecasts on mainstem Rio Grande/Rio Bravo

• 5 NWS Weather Forecast Offices with warning responsibility on the boundary portion of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo– WFO Albuquerque oversees hydrology program of WFO El Paso– WFO San Angelo oversees hydrology program of WFO Midland– WFO San Antonio oversees hydrology program of WFOs Corpus Christi

and Brownsville

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Basin Coordination

• IBWC/CILA

• WFO El Paso

• WFO Midland

• WFO Brownsville

• SMN

• WFO Corpus Christi

• WGRFC

• CONAGUA

• WFO Austin/San Antonio

• WFO San Angelo

• SR ROC

• Texas SOC

• FEMA VI