HDSC -- Hydrometeorological Design Studies Center

About HDSC

National Weather Service
Office of Water Prediction
Hydrometeorological Design Studies Center

The Hydrometeorological Design Studies Center (HDSC) is responsible for the development, production, and publication of precipitation frequency (PF) estimates for the United States and affiliated territories. These estimates are updated periodically to account for new data and improved methodologies, depending on available funding.

Since the early 2000s, HDSC has updated PF estimates for various regions of the country and published them as Volumes in NOAA Atlas 14 series (https://hdsc.nws.noaa.gov/pfds/). The analysis and methodologies used to estimate precipitation frequencies in NOAA Atlas 14 series assumed that the climate is stationary in a statistical context. In 2022, NOAA received federal funding under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to revise and update NOAA PF estimates nationwide to account for a changing climate. Once complete, updated national estimates will be published in two volumes of NOAA Atlas 15: Volume 1 will provide PF estimates that account for temporal trends in historical observations, and Volume 2 will provide PF estimates projected into the future under different carbon emissions scenarios based on climate model projections.

Please visit the NOAA Atlas 14 website site for detailed information on NOAA Atlas 14: https://www.weather.gov/owp/hdsc. For all inquiries regarding NOAA Atlas 14, please send an email to HDSC.questions@noaa.gov.

Please visit the NOAA Atlas 15 Pilot website for detailed information on NOAA Atlas 15, currently in development: https://water.noaa.gov/about/atlas15. For all inquiries regarding NOAA Atlas 15, please send an email to atlas15.info@noaa.gov.

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