CONUS404

Datasets:

• CONUS404

Description: 

CONUS404 is a unique, high-resolution hydro-climate dataset appropriate for forcing hydrological models and conducting meteorological analysis over the contiguous United States.  CONUS404, so named because it covers the CONtiguous United States for 40 years at 4-km resolution, was produced by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model simulations run by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) as part of a collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Water Mission Area.  In fact, CONUS404 includes 41 years of data (water years 1980-2020) and the spatial domain extends beyond the CONUS into Canada and Mexico, thereby capturing transboundary river basins and covering all contributing areas for the CONUS surface waters. 

The CONUS404 dataset, produced using WRF version 3.9.1.1, is the successor to the CONUS1 dataset (Liu and others, 2017) with improved representation of weather and climate conditions in the central United States due to the addition of a shallow groundwater module and several other improvements in the Noah-Multiparameterization (Noah-MP) Land Surface Model land surface model.  It also uses a more up-to-date and higher-resolution reanalysis dataset (ERA5; Hersbach and others, 2020) as input and covers a longer period than CONUS1.

Organization: University of California Merced (UCM)

Website: CONUS404 on USGS ScienceBase

Google Earth Engine Catalog: This dataset is not currently available on Earth Engine.

Spatial resolution: 4-km grid (1/24-deg)

Time Span: 1979 - 2022

Variables:

• Maximum Temperature
• Minimum Temperature
• Mean Dew Point Temperature
• Precipitation (PPT)
• ASCE Grass Reference Evapotranspiration (ETo)
• ASCE Alfalfa Reference Evapotranspiration (ETr)
• Potential Water Deficit (PPT-ETo)
• Hargreaves Potential Evapotranspiration
• Potential Water Deficit (PPT-Hargreaves PET)
• Wind Speed
• Surface Pressure
• Downward Shortwave Radiation (W/m^2)
  • Reflects average over all hours of the day.
  • To go from Watts/m^2 to MJ/(m^2day) you need to multiply the number of sec in a day: watts/meter² x 86400 s/day x 1 MJ/10^6 J = MJ/(meter²*day).
• Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)
• Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI)
• Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI)
• Hargreaves Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI)
• Hargreaves Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI)

Terms of Use:

• This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

References:

• Rasmussen, R.M., Chen, F., Liu, C., Ikeda, K., Prein, A., Kim, J., Schneider, T., Dai, A., Gochis, D., Dugger, A., Zhang, Y., Jaye, A., Dudhia, J., He, C., Harrold, M., Xue, L., Chen, S., Newman, A., Dougherty, E., Abolafia-Rozenzweig, R., Lybarger, N., R. Viger, Dunne, K., Rasmussen, K., Miguez-Macho, G., 2023, Four-kilometer long-term regional hydroclimate reanalysis over the conterminous United States (CONUS), 1979-2020: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9PHPK4F.