WCD-31. Intense Rainfall and Flash Flood Reports Page

Abstract
There has been a need for an updated and interactive location where Local Storm Reports (LSRs) for heavy rainfall and flash flood/regular flood can be collected and coagulated for ease of access. This website provides such an access point, providing researchers with numerous tools to be able to look up recent and archived LSRs, displaying information on a map and using data tables to display the information in a common CSV format. The user is able to select information from the map using a number of selection tools, and is able to parse the information in the data table selection itself using a number of filtering tools available in the data table. The user is then able to export data to download using these filtered tools. This enables for a more precise selection of LSRs, and allows for users to more easily pinpoint weather patterns within the data that may be occurring. The observations include: • National Weather Service (NWS) Local Storm Reports (LSRs) for Flash Flood, Flood, and Heavy Rain. • Stream Gauge Reports - Streamflow measurements from the United States Geological Survey exceeding minor flood stage and having an upstream drainage basin area less than 300 km^2 In addition, two proxies are included. • < 20% Annual Exceedance Probability - Stage IV rainfall analysis exceeding the 5-year Average Recurrence Interval from the NOAA Atlas 14 data (except Atlas 2 data in the Pacific Northwest)’ • Rainfall Exceeding Flash Flood Guidance - Stage IV rainfall analysis exceeding 1, 3, and 6 hour Flash Flood Guidance’ Technical Information The rainfall reports page was designed in Python, using Dash as the web framework. Dash is designed to enable the user to write HTML code using Python, and includes a large number of common design components that interact seamlessly with both HTML and custom Python code. Dash also enables the use of ‘callbacks’ to dynamically interact with the page using Python. Following that, Dash is also tightly integrated with Plotly, a premier Python plotting tool. With all of this combined, Dash is a very powerful, robust web framework combining common web design tools that can then access the Python programming environment, enabling complex plotting and deep interaction between constituent parts of a given webpage.