The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) and the U.S. Geological Survey have developed projected future change factors for precipitation depth-duration-frequency (DDF) curves at 174 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Atlas 14 stations in central and south Florida. The change factors were computed as the ratio of projected future to historical extreme precipitation depths fitted to extreme precipitation data from various downscaled climate datasets using a constrained maximum likelihood (CML) approach. The change factors correspond to the period 2050-2089 (centered in the year 2070) as compared to the 1966-2005 historical period.
A Microsoft Excel workbook is provided that tabulates best models for each downscaled climate dataset and for all downscaled climate datasets considered together. Best models were identified based on how well the models capture the climatology and interannual variability of four climate extreme indices using the Model Climatology Index (MCI) and the Model Variability Index (MVI) of Srivastava and others (2020). The four indices consist of annual maxima consecutive precipitation for durations of 1, 3, 5, and 7 days compared against the same indices computed based on the PRISM and SFWMD gridded precipitation datasets for two climate regions: climate region 4 in South Central Florida, and climate region 5 in South Florida. The PRISM dataset is based on the Parameter-elevation Relationships on Independent Slopes Model interpolation method of Daly and others (2008). The South Florida Water Management District’s (SFWMD) precipitation super-grid is a gridded precipitation dataset developed by modelers at the agency for use in hydrologic modeling (SFWMD, 2005). This dataset is considered by the SFWMD as the best available gridded rainfall dataset for south Florida. Best models were selected based on MCI and MVI evaluated within each individual downscaled dataset. In addition, best models were selected by comparison across datasets and referred to as "ALL DATASETS" hereafter. Due to the small sample size, all models in the using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (JupiterWRF) dataset were considered as best models.