Data Sets and Web Tools from UCSB's Climate Hazard Center

CHC Early Estimates

Did you know? Along with the Climate Hazard Center (CHC)'s every five-day updates to Climate Hazards Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) preliminary data (available in multiple data formats), CHC provides ready-made graphics to support agroclimatic monitoring.

These CHC Early Estimates combine the latest data with CHIRPS final to show precipitation totals for the past 5 days to 3 months and how these compare to previous years. An additional suite of graphics shows how the situation may change, according to the next two week forecast. The forecast comes from an unbiasing procedure that makes Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS) compatible with CHIRPS (see CHIRPS-GEFS).

A suite of CHC Early Estimate graphics are available for select regions. Users can also download the data for their own analyses. CHC EE provide the (a) precipitation total, (b) anomaly, (c) percent of average, (d) rank, and (e) standardized precipitation index (SPI) for the most recent 5/10/30/60/90-days based on CHIRPS final and preliminary and 10/30/60 + 15 day forecast from CHIRPS-GEFS.

Early Warning Explorer (EWX)

The Early Warning Explorer is a web interface jointly developed by CHC and USGS EROS. This tool allows a user to interact with earth observation data (e.g. precipitation, temperature, NDVI, and soil moisture) through intuitive maps and flexible time series plots. There are options to view data values, anomalies, and standardized anomalies for multiple time periods, regions, and data sets.

An official version of the EWX is supported by USGS EROS. The CHC version of the EWX hosts additional data sets that include FLDAS outputs (hydrologic variables from a NASA land data assimilation system forced with CHIRPS and other data) and forecast products.

CHIRPS-GEFS forecasts

The CHC takes the Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS) 16-day forecast and performs a quantile-matching algorithm to get a CHIRPS-compatible forecast for the same period. The CHIRPS-GEFS forecast, which is updated daily, is available for download as 0.05 x 0.05 degree geotiffs.

CHIRPS-GEFS 5/10/15 day forecasts are also available for interactive viewing through the Early Warning Explorer (EWX). Additionally, these forecasts are blended with CHIRPS final and preliminary data for a forward-looking snapshot of where forecast precipitation would amplify or reduce to-date deficits or surpluses (see CHC Early Estimates). Learn more about CHIRP-GEFS.

 

This article was originally published by the UCSB Climate Hazards Center - Data Sets and Web Tools, June 2019. 

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