This algorithm creates a synthetic hourly precipitation record based upon a daily record paired with an hourly record for a nearby station. The algorithms used in NetSTORM are adapted from those in Socolofsky, Adams, and Entekhabi (2001). The NetSTORM method better reproduces the hourly distribution of the actual record than the approach described in the 2001 paper did. However, the resulting record has fewer records from 11 PM to 1 AM than the original record.

 

The user must supply monthly threshold depths for generating stochastic precipitation pulses. The following depths (inches) were calibrated for the Boston-area analysis described in the original paper: 0.07, 0.08, 0.08, 0.08, 0.10, 0.25, 0.30, 0.35, 0.25, 0.12, 0.12, 0.08. The user should adjust the coefficients so that the rainfall statistics for the output file are comparable with known statistics for the area. One approach to estimating the monthly threshold depths is to first apply the program using a daily dataset from the same station as that used for the hourly data. The IDF statistics for the resulting synthetic dataset should closely match the statistics for the actual data.

 

The code was adapted from an original program provided by Professor Scott Socolofsky, Texas A&M University.