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Restructuring and serving web-accessible streamflow data from the NOAA National Water Model historic simulations

Nature, Scientific Data
By: , , , and 
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02316-7

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Abstract

In 2016, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration deployed the first iteration of an operational National Water Model (NWM) to forecast the water cycle in the continental United States. With many versions, an hourly, multi-decadal historic simulation is made available to the public. In all released to date, the files containing simulated streamflow contain a snapshot of model conditions across the entire domain for a single timestep which makes accessing  time series a technical and resource-intensive challenge. In the most recent release, extracting a complete streamflow time series for a single location requires managing 367,920 files (~16.2 TB). In this work we describe a reproducible process for restructuring a sequential set of NWM steamflow files for efficient time series access and provide restructured datasets for versions 1.2 (1993–2018), 2.0 (1993–2020), and 2.1 (1979–2022). These datasets have been made accessible via an OPeNDAP enabled THREDDS data server for public use and a brief analysis highlights the latest version of the model should not be assumed best for all locations. Lastly we describe an R package that expedites data retrieval with examples for multiple use-cases.

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Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Restructuring and serving web-accessible streamflow data from the NOAA National Water Model historic simulations
Series title Nature, Scientific Data
DOI 10.1038/s41597-023-02316-7
Volume 10
Year Published 2023
Language English
Publisher Nature
Contributing office(s) WMA - Integrated Modeling and Prediction Division
Description 725, 10 p.
Country United States
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