Comparison of NEXRAD Precipitation Data to
Measured Levelogger Data
Albuquerque is a home to many
thousands of people and with the population on a steady rise, these people may
be at risk to potential hazardous changes in the climate. As the city lies in
the valley of the Sandia Mountain, flooding is of major concern. To try and
divert this runoff water away from the property owners and to save lives
through flood mitigation AMAFCA, otherwise known as the Albuquerque
Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority, was created in 1963. With a slogan
quite literally stating ‘Protecting Life and Property since 1963’, they are
vowing to do just that through the construction of diversion channels, dams and
ponds.
With increasing model
advancements, engineers have been able to size storm water infrastructure to
not only meet the 100-year storm size, but also to predict future storms with
more accuracy. AMAFCA has deployed instrumentation called leveloggers
in the channels to measure and track storm water runoff. These devices once
deployed continuously note data every five minutes and report back monthly.
Precipitation data is also looked at through a variety of other sources such as
radar and satellite imagery. A new radar system that came out in 1988 by the
National Weather Service (NWS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), is a product called NEXRAD, or the Next Generation
Radar. With this new radar, NWS is able to warn the
public of storm advancements at an earlier stage than ever before. 
The objective of this project
was to compare the levelogger data that AMAFCA has
collected over the past couple of years to the radar, NEXRAD, that the entirety
of the United States uses. This is to see if Albuquerque can use the
precipitation data, converted to runoff, to be able to accurately define a storm
and use it for future prediction of storm water accumulation. Since AMAFCA
instrumentation was used, the extent of the project area is within the AMAFCA
jurisdictional watersheds that are maintained for flood control in Bernalillo
county. Two watersheds; the North Pino and the South Pino, located in the North- Eastern portion of Albuquerque,
denoted in orange in the maps above, were chosen to be analyzed. AMAFCA has
deployed leveloggers within each of the watersheds at
the outlets to the North Diversion Channel which runs North to Bernalillo.
These locations are shown by the red stars in the map above.