(BRAVO) Study: Final Report. - Desert Research Institute

Final Report — September 2004
Figure 9-4. Examples of REMSAD predicted cloud cover and corresponding GOES satellite
picture (for July 3, 1999).
For both the precipitation and cloud comparisons, five geographic areas were
designated to be of particular interest, namely the area around Big Bend National Park, the
Texas - Mexico border area, the State of Texas, the southeastern U.S., and the northeastern
U.S., as indicated in Figure 9-3. The maps of both modeled and measured precipitation and
clouds in each region were examined to qualitatively assess the fraction of the area of each
region that was covered with precipitation or clouds. Results were assigned scores using a
quintile grading system in which none is assigned the value of 0; 1% to 20% = 1; 20% to
40% = 2; 40% to 60% = 3; 60% to 80% = 4; and 80% to 100% = 5, and the model and
measured scores were compared to assess model performance. An example of the
precipitation scoring, based on the maps in Figure 9-3, is given in Table 9-5.
Table 9-5. Example of the qualitative ratings of predicted and observed precipitation for the five
regions, for the maps shown in Figure 9-3. The scoring scheme is 0 = no precipitation, 1 = 1% to
20%, 2 = 20% to 40%, 3 = 40% to 60%, 4 = 60% to 80%, and 5 = 80% to 100% of the region showing
precipitation.
Predicted Score Observations Score
Big Bend 2 0
Border Area 4 0
Texas 1 1
Southeastern US 3 2
Northeastern US 2 4
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