Rain Gage Data Command

Rain gages supply rainfall data for one or more subbasins in the study area. The rainfall data can either be user-defined or described in an external file. Rain gages are part of the project and can be shared by multiple basin or meteorologic models.

In GeoHECHMS, the user can define the rain gage time series data using the Rain Gage Data command. The defined rain gage time series data can later be used in the meteorological model for defining one or more gages for each subbasin in a watershed model. Refer to this article in our knowledge base to learn how to define a meteorological model.

Follow the steps below to use the Rain Gage Data command:

From the Input ribbon menu, select the Rain Gage Data command.
The Rain Gage Data dialog box will be displayed.

The below sections describe how to define the rain gage time series data and interact with the above dialog box.

Defining Rain Gages

The Select Rain Gage section allows the user to create, copy or delete rain gages. In addition, the user can edit the unique name assigned to the rain gages and provide a description for the selected rain gage.
Select Rain Gage section

The following parameters are provided in this section:

Rain gage ID
This dropdown combo box lists all the rain gages that are defined in the model. By default, the software names the rain gages as Rain Gage 01, 02, 03, etc. The user can select any rain gage and click on the pencil icon to edit the name.
Description
This text field allows the user to enter an optional description that describes the rain gage being defined.
New
Clicking the [New] button causes the software to create an empty time series data set. By default, the software provides a unique ID for the rain gage to be defined. Pressing the [Esc] key or [Cancel changes] button aborts the creation of a new time series data set and returns the dialog box to its previous state.
If the user exits the Rain gage ID field without defining an ID, the creation of the time series data set is aborted. After entering a Rain gage ID and clicking on the [Accept changes] button, the software checks that the defined ID is unique. If not, a warning dialog box is displayed, and the user is then returned to the Rain gage ID field to change the ID.

Copy
Clicking the [Copy] button creates a copy of the current rain gage data set. When this command is executed, the software automatically provides a unique default name for the duplicated rain gage. The cursor is then placed into the Rain gage ID The user can go with the default name or enter a different valid and unique ID before moving on to add any other data.
Delete
This button allows the user to delete the current rain gage data set from the model. Clicking the [Delete] button causes the following confirmation dialog box to be displayed.
Clicking the [Yes] button causes the software to delete the current rain gage data set.

Rain Gage Location

This section allows the user to provide a precise description of the rain gage’s location. The location is specified for each gage as the latitude and longitude. The latitude and longitude can be entered in decimal degrees in the Latitude and Longitude fields, respectively. Upon entering the latitude and longitude, the software will provide the location’s physical address in the Location read-only field. Alternatively, the user can click the [Pick] button to pick the location interactively from the Map View. The software will then display the physical address, longitude, and latitude values for the selected location in the respective fields.
Rain Gage Location section

DSS Data

This section allows the user to select a DSS data file to define the rain gage time series data. This section is disabled (i.e., grayed out) if the Time Series Data radio button option is selected.
DSS Data section

The following parameters are provided in this section:

DSS file
This entry denotes the file directory path to the DSS data file. Clicking on the [Select] button allows the user to select the directory path and data path using the DSS Data File & Path dialog box (explained below).
DSS path
This entry denotes the data path within the DSS data file, which contains the time series data.

DSS Data File & Path

Below is the DSS Data File & Path dialog box for selecting the directory path and data path for the time series data.
DSS Data File & Path dialog box

In the above dialog box, the user can click the [Select] button and browse to the folder containing the DSS file. Once a DSS file is selected, a list of all the DSS pathnames within that file will show up in the table. The user can select the desired data path from the table and click the [Add to Selected Data Paths] button to add the selected data path to the Selected Data Paths list. The dialog box also displays the graphical plot for the selected data path in the DSS data path plot section.

Once the desired path is selected, the user can click the [OK] button. The user will be returned to the Rain Gage Data dialog box.

Refer to this article in our knowledge base to learn how to view data contained in an HEC-DSS file.

Time Series Data

This section allows the user to manually enter time series data for the selected element. This section is disabled (i.e., grayed out) if the DSS Data radio button option is selected.
Time Series Data section

The following parameters are provided in this section:

Rainfall type
This dropdown combo box entry is used to define the type of data that is to be entered. The following options are available:
1. Cumulative (default)
2. Incremental

Time increment
This dropdown combo box entry is used to define the time increment that defines the time series data. The following options are available:

Minutes	Hours	Days
1 minute	1 hour	1 day
2 minutes	2 hours
3 minutes	3 hours
4 minutes	4 hours
5 minutes	6 hours
6 minutes	8 hours
10 minutes	12 hours
15 minutes
20 minutes
30 minutes

Time window
This dropdown combo box entry is used to define the type of time window data that is to be entered. The following options are available.
1. From Control Data
2. User-Defined (default)
  
  Note that the From Control Data dropdown combo box option is only available if control data has already been defined. Otherwise, this option is disabled.

Select control
This dropdown combo box entry is used to define the control data set to use. This dropdown combo box is only available when the From Control Data option is selected. Otherwise, this option is disabled. If only one control data set is defined, then the software will automatically select that control data set. When a control data set is selected, the software will automatically populate the following fields:
1. Start date & Start time
2. End date & End time
Start date/Start time/End date/End time
These fields define the time period for the element data. When the From Control Data option is selected, these fields become read-only fields. When the control data set is selected, the software will automatically fill-in the starting and ending dates and times. When the User-Defined option is selected, these fields allow manual entry of dates and times.
Time Series Table
The Time column values automatically fill-in, based upon the selected Time Increment and Start/End dates & times. The user can manually enter data values into the Precipitation column fields.

Rainfall Time Series Plot

The section displays the Precipitation (in) vs Time plot of the selected rain gage data. Note that the data in the graph cannot be edited regardless of whether the gage uses manual entry or retrieves data from a DSS file. If no time series data is available for the specified time window, the graph will not show any data.
Rainfall Time Series Plot view