NOAA’s Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor (MRMS) dataset combines the best available information from the NEXRAD radar towers and thousands of rain gauges to provide historic and near real time rainfall accumulation estimates for the continental US on an hourly basis down to a 1 square mile grid.  Previously, the data was available only in hourly GIS files.  In collaboration with NOAA, HNTB has created a data pipeline to place the GIS files into a tabular database.  Data for a specific location can now be queried, and an hour-by-hour time history can be extracted.  

Essentially, we can put a “virtual rai gauge” anywhere in the country both historically and in near real time to allow detailed hindcasting of specific events, an assessment of the peak rainfalls observed at thousands of assets (in our case bridges) and the ability to better quantify the occurrence of isolated extreme rainfall events not capture by physical sensors.  This presentation will explore the implications of these data advances and how it fits into the big picture of resilient infrastructure.

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