An assessment of the near real‐time rainfall network on Canada's eastern Prairies

Bogusing errors associated with estimating rainfalls for ungauged points on Canada's eastern Prairies based on the near real‐time network have been determined for growing season totals, summer monthly amounts and summer daily values. The bogusing errors as a percentage of the concurrent area‐average amount or the coefficients of variation decreased as the measurement period increased. Growing season precipitation totals can be approximated to within 20%. The error associated with bogused summer monthly amounts was more than twice as large. The field of summer daily rainfall amounts cannot be estimated accurately. It can be concluded, therefore, that the precipitation network on the eastern Prairies is not sufficient for applications requiring the input of summer daily or monthly precipitation amounts from points other than the gauged locations. The network does, nevertheless, provide relatively accurate estimates of the growing season's precipitation field to assist in defining the climate. Reductions in the magnitude of the bogusing errors associated with estimated precipitation amounts can be achieved by adding new stations to the network. While additional sites provide data at the newly gauged points, they do little to improve the network's representation of the rainfall field unless the new stations are added in fairly large numbers.