New Tool Shows Historic and Simulated Future Water Conditions in the U.S.

The Monthly Water Balance Model Futures Portal, released today by the U.S. Geological Survey, provides a user-friendly interface summarizing monthly historic (1952 through 2005) and simulated future conditions (2020 through 2099) for various meteorological and hydrological variables at locations across the conterminous United States.

The features on this new application include seven searchable meteorological and hydrological variables: actual evapotranspiration, atmospheric temperature, potential evapotranspiration and precipitation, runoff, snow water equivalent (the volume of water stored in the snowpack/depth of water if the snow melted), and streamflow.

“The creation of the portal involved the expertise and skills of individuals from all over the U.S. in a number of different sciences and technological fields such hydrological modeling, climate science, geographic information systems, Web development and data science,” said Andrew Bock, lead USGS scientist for the project. “In 2017, the team plans to follow up the platform release with a number of informational products to help users better understand more advanced capabilities this system has to offer.”

This collaborative effort is a product of a multi-year partnership between the USGS, the Department of Interior North Central and South Central Climate Science Centers and the Environmental Protection Agency.