Climate-Based Estimation of Hydrologic Inflow into Lake Okeechobee, Florida

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative evaluation of methods for climate-based estimation of the net inflow rate into Lake Okeechobee, Fla. The estimated net inflow rate is used by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) to support the management and operations of the Lake Okeechobee hydrologic system. The first method evaluated in this paper (Croley) uses rainfall outlooks provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) to calculate a weighed average of historical inflow values for each month. The second method evaluated in this paper (SFWMD Empirical) uses a linear regression on statistics of historical data to predict the net inflow rate. These two methods were developed and have been used operationally by the SFWMD since 2000. Three new methods are presented and comparatively evaluated to gauge their ability in estimating net inflow rates. The first two of these methods are based on CPC issued forecasts in decile probability density format. The ...