Stochastic Storm Simulation Using Optimal Estimation and Non-Parametric
Generation of Ensemble Parameters
Abstract
The historical record of rainfall observation rarely provides sufficient
record length and resolution required in many applications. The work
described here presents a stochastic framework for long-term simulations
of non-tropical storms at high spatial and temporal resolution. The
framework adopts optimal estimation for spatio-temporal modeling of rain
fields. A non-parametric approach featuring K-Nearest Neighbor
Resampling (KNNR) plus the Genetic Algorithm (GA) mixing process is
utilized for generating parameters in the long-term simulation. A case
study is conducted in Dallas-Fort-Worth metroplex as the simulation
domain. Ensemble parameters are generated using the KNNR+GA method from
adjacent homogeneous areas and 10 years of radar rainfall observation.
One hundred most rainy days in the 10 years are simulated at the
resolutions of 4 × 4 km and 1 hour for 50 ensemble members. The
simulated rainfall is thoroughly evaluated against the observed radar
rainfall with respects to statistical moments, spatio-temporal
structure, and frequency distribution of rainfall at both near-point
scale and domain scale. The results indicate that ensemble simulations
successfully reproduce key statistical properties of the observed
rainfall. In addition, the approach is also effective and flexible in
capturing heavy rainfall values, which is important for many
hydrologic/hydraulic practices. As essentially a downscaling tool, this
stochastic rainfall generator can have many applications where rainfall
needs to be represented at finer spatiotemporal resolution.