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Statistically Downscaled Wind and Humidity from the ERA-5 and MERRA-2 Reanalysis over California and Nevada from 1979-2019

Metadata Updated: December 11, 2025

Statistical downscaling methodology was applied to global atmosphere reanalysis, using a 10 year dynamical modeled output as training data, to extend a record of wind and humidity back through the satellite era beginning 1979 or 1980. To extend the record of weather to cover a longer period and thus a greater number of significant fire weather events, statistical downscaling was implemented using the Localized Constructed Analogs (LOCA) statistical downscaling technique. LOCA is computationally efficient and has been designed to better simulate extreme events and spatial weather structure than previous statistical downscaling. The output hourly 3 km spatial resolution data covering the California and Nevada region was downscaled from each of the two global atmospheric reanalyses: a) the ERA5 Reanalysis covering January 1979 through December 2019; b) the MERRA2 Reanalysis covering January 1980 through December 2018. These two reanalyses, ERA5 and MERRA2, are acknowledged to provide high quality, dynamically-consistent representations of historical global weather. The time resolution was extended from daily to hourly time samples, given the 10 years of hourly, 2km WRF dynamical model historical simulation from 2004-2013 supplied by co-investigator Tim Brown and colleagues at Desert Research Institute, called the “DRI-WRF” dataset. The LOCA dataset was generated over California and Nevada for each hour of 1979-2019, the satellite era that comprises the ERA5 Reanalysis. In the LOCA downscaling process, cross validation tests were employed to evaluate LOCA performance in simulating winds and humidity, especially in cases of extreme high winds and low humidity that are particularly important in this fire weather application. The LOCA downscaled winds and humidity were supplied to co-PIs of this project for their investigation of daily weather influences on wildfire in California.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date December 11, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date December 11, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-62698a7dd34e76103cd09c42
Data Last Modified 2024-11-27T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 0a4d78da-2d5d-4c66-ad4c-83f6d85471df
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 9d5c5b634aefa7f33b61c3ed832591070a4fed75ea67b12d56466bc2a740a46a
Source Schema Version 1.1

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