A team from the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) is in Norman, Okla., to work with NSSL’s National Mosaic and multi-sensor Quantitative precipitation estimation (NMQ) system.

China recently implemented a national Doppler weather radar network similar to NEXRAD, and they are using NMQ to incorporate the radar observations into their operations.

Traditionally, the MWR has used rain gauge data only for their flood warnings and water resource management.

Through a collaboration project with CIMMS, NSSL installed the NMQ system for a pilot domain of the Huai River and the middle reach of the Yellow River in China for the MWR.

The system has been running in China in real-time since June 2011 and has demonstrated its capabilities of integrating data from radar, rain gauge, and atmospheric model and generating high-resolution QPE products operationally.

Based on the pilot domain experiment, the MWR now plans to expand the system to their local Water Resources Commissions, similar to the NWS River Forecast Centers.  The visitors are being trained at NSSL on the NMQ system configurations and real-time management.

Future collaborations will be focused on customizations and refinements of NMQ’s scientific components for the local environment in China.