@article{gwon_ji_abadi_rau_berman_leeper_rennie_nagaya_bell_2024, title={The effect of heterogeneous severe drought on all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in the Northern Rockies and Plains of the United States}, volume={912}, ISSN={["1879-1026"]}, DOI={10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169033}, abstractNote={Drought is a distinct and complicated climate hazard that regularly leads to severe economic impacts. Changes in the frequency and occurrence of drought due to anthropogenic climate change can lead to new and unanticipated outcomes. To better prepare for health outcomes, more research is needed to develop methodologies to understand potential consequences. This study suggests a new methodology for assessing the impact of monthly severe drought exposure on mortality in the Northern Rockies and Plains of the United States from 2000 to 2018. A two-stage model with the power prior approach was applied to integrate heterogeneous severe drought pattern and estimate overall risk ratios of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality related to multiple drought indices (the US Drought Monitor, 6- and 12-month Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index, 6- and 12 month Evaporative Demand Drought Index). Under severe drought, the risk ratios of all-cause mortality are 1.050 (95 % Cr: 1.031 to 1.071, USDM), 1.041 (95 % Cr: 1.022 to 1.060, 6-SPEI), 1.009 (95 % Cr: 0.989 to 1.031, 12SPEI), 1.045 (95 % Cr: 1.022 to 1.067, 6-EDDI), and 1.035 (95 % Cr: 1.009 to 1.062, 12-EDDI); cardiovascular mortality are 1.057 (95 % Cr: 1.023 to 1.091, USDM), 1.028 (95 % Cr: 0.998 to 1.059, 6-SPEI), 1.005 (95 % Cr: 0.973 to 1.040, 12-SPEI), 1.042 (95 % Cr: 1.005 to 1.080, 6-EDDI), and 1.004 (95 % Cr: 0.959 to 1.049, 12-EDDI). Our results showed that (i) a model with properly accounted for heterogeneous exposure pattern had greater risk ratios if statistically significant; (ii) a mid-term (6-month) severe drought had higher risk ratios compared to longer-term (12-month) drought; and (iii) different severe droughts affect populations in a different way. These results expand the existing knowledge of drought relationship to increasing mortality in the United States. The findings from this study highlight the need for communities and policymakers to establish effective drought-prevention initiatives in this region.}, journal={SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT}, author={Gwon, Yeongjin and Ji, Yuanyuan and Abadi, Azar M. and Rau, Austin and Berman, Jesse D. and Leeper, Ronald D. and Rennie, Jared and Nagaya, Richard and Bell, Jesse E.}, year={2024}, month={Feb} }
 @article{leeper_palecki_watts_diamond_2023, title={On the Detection of Remotely Sensed Soil Moisture Extremes}, volume={62}, ISSN={["1558-8432"]}, DOI={10.1175/JAMC-D-23-0059.1}, abstractNote={Abstract}, number={11}, journal={JOURNAL OF APPLIED METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATOLOGY}, author={Leeper, Ronald d. and Palecki, Michael a. and Watts, Matthew and Diamond, Howard}, year={2023}, month={Nov}, pages={1611–1626} }
 @article{leeper_bilotta_petersen_stiles_heim_fuchs_prat_palecki_ansari_2022, title={Characterizing US drought over the past 20 years using the US drought monitor}, volume={4}, ISSN={["1097-0088"]}, DOI={10.1002/joc.7653}, abstractNote={Abstract}, journal={INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY}, author={Leeper, Ronald D. and Bilotta, Rocky and Petersen, Bryan and Stiles, Crystal J. and Heim, Richard and Fuchs, Brian and Prat, Olivier P. and Palecki, Michael and Ansari, Steve}, year={2022}, month={Apr} }
 @article{moreno_sugg_runkle_leeper_perry_sugg_2022, title={Examining spatiotemporal trends of drought in the conterminous United States using self-organizing maps}, ISSN={["1930-0557"]}, DOI={10.1080/02723646.2022.2035891}, abstractNote={ABSTRACT Droughts are a natural, recurrent climate extreme that can inflict long-lasting devastation on natural ecosystems and socio-economic sectors. Unlike other natural hazards, drought onset is insidious and often affects a greater spatial extent over a prolonged temporal scale. In the United States the evolution of drought and its impacts are typically region-specific and intensified precipitation variability may obscure how drought may manifest. In this study, we examine the spatiotemporal trends of drought using self-organizing maps (SOM), competitive learning subset of artificial neural networks (ANN), requiring unsupervised training of inputs. We introduced monthly Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) values to the SOM to identify existing clusters of wetting and drying patterns from 1895 to 2016. After training, we created cartographic visualizations of the SOM output and conducted a subsequent time-series analysis to link with the geographic patterns of drought. Over the last 40 years, precipitation intensified in the Northeast, Midwest, and upper Great Plains across several nodes. Across the majority of SOM patterns, we identified no significant changes of drying or wetting patterns over the last century for the greater part of the CONUS.}, journal={PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY}, author={Moreno, Camila and Sugg, Johnathan and Runkle, Jennifer and Leeper, Ronald D. and Perry, L. Baker and Sugg, Margaret}, year={2022}, month={Feb} }
 @article{nelson_prat_leeper_2021, title={An Investigation of NEXRAD-Based Quantitative Precipitation Estimates in Alaska}, volume={13}, ISSN={["2072-4292"]}, url={https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13/16/3202}, DOI={10.3390/rs13163202}, abstractNote={Precipitation estimation by weather radars in Alaska is challenging. In this study, we investigate National Weather Service (NWS) precipitation products that are produced from the seven NEXRAD radar sites in Alaska. The NWS precipitation processing subsystem generates stages of data at each NEXRAD site which are then input to the weather forecast office to generate a regionwide precipitation product. Data from the NEXRAD sites and the operational rain gauges in the weather forecast region are used to produce this regionwide product that is then sent to the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) to be included in the NCEP Stage IV distribution. The NCEP Stage IV product for Alaska has been available since 2017. We use the United States Climate Reference Network (USCRN) data from Alaska to compare to the NCEP Stage IV data. Given that the USCRN can be used in the production of the NCEP Stage IV data for Alaska, we also used the NEXRAD Digital Precipitation Array (DPA) that is generated at the site for comparison of the radar-only products. Comparing the NEXRAD-based data from Alaska to the USCRN gauge estimates using the USCRN site information on air temperature, we are able to condition the analysis based on the hourly or 6-hourly average air temperature. The estimates in the frozen phase of precipitation largely underestimate as compared to the gauge, and the correlation is low with larger errors as compared to other phases of precipitation. In the mixed phase the underestimation of precipitation improves, but the correlation is still low with relatively large errors as compared to the rain phases of precipitation. The difficulties in precipitation estimation in cold temperatures are well known and we show the evaluation for the NCEP Stage IV regional data for Alaska and the NEXRAD site specific Digital Precipitation Array (DPA) data. Results show the challenges of estimating mixed-phase and frozen precipitation. However, the DPA data shows somewhat better performance in the mixed precipitation phase, which suggests that the NWS Precipitation Processing Subsystem (PPS) is tuned to the climatology as it relates to precipitation in Alaska.}, number={16}, journal={REMOTE SENSING}, author={Nelson, Brian R. and Prat, Olivier P. and Leeper, Ronald D.}, year={2021}, month={Aug} }
 @article{leeper_matthews_cesarini_bell_2021, title={Evaluation of Air and Soil Temperatures for Determining the Onset of Growing Season}, volume={126}, ISSN={["2169-8961"]}, DOI={10.1029/2020JG006171}, abstractNote={Abstract}, number={8}, journal={JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-BIOGEOSCIENCES}, author={Leeper, Ronald D. and Matthews, Jessica L. and Cesarini, Maria S. and Bell, Jesse E.}, year={2021}, month={Aug} }
 @article{leeper_petersen_palecki_diamond_2021, title={Exploring the Use of Standardized Soil Moisture as a Drought Indicator}, volume={60}, ISSN={["1558-8432"]}, DOI={10.1175/JAMC-D-20-0275.1}, abstractNote={Abstract}, number={8}, journal={JOURNAL OF APPLIED METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATOLOGY}, author={Leeper, Ronald D. and Petersen, Bryan and Palecki, Michael A. and Diamond, Howard}, year={2021}, month={Aug}, pages={1021–1033} }
 @article{prat_nelson_nickl_leeper_2021, title={Global Evaluation of Gridded Satellite Precipitation Products from the NOAA Climate Data Record Program}, volume={22}, ISSN={["1525-7541"]}, DOI={10.1175/JHM-D-20-0246.1}, abstractNote={Abstract}, number={9}, journal={JOURNAL OF HYDROMETEOROLOGY}, author={Prat, Olivier P. and Nelson, Brian R. and Nickl, Elsa and Leeper, Ronald D.}, year={2021}, month={Sep}, pages={2291–2310} }
 @article{nelson_prat_leeper_2021, title={Using Ancillary Information from Radar-Based Observations and Rain Gauges to Identify Error and Bias}, volume={22}, ISSN={["1525-7541"]}, DOI={10.1175/JHM-D-20-0193.1}, abstractNote={Abstract}, number={5}, journal={JOURNAL OF HYDROMETEOROLOGY}, author={Nelson, Brian R. and Prat, Olivier P. and Leeper, Ronald D.}, year={2021}, month={May}, pages={1249–1258} }
 @misc{sugg_runkle_leeper_bagli_golden_handwerger_magee_moreno_reed-kelly_taylor_et al._2020, title={A scoping review of drought impacts on health and society in North America}, volume={162}, ISSN={["1573-1480"]}, DOI={10.1007/s10584-020-02848-6}, abstractNote={Drought is a highly destructive natural hazard with wide-ranging impacts on water security, agriculture, energy, and human health. Unlike most natural hazards, droughts can develop anywhere, evolve rapidly within a month or slowly over a season, and span months to decades without a clear beginning or end. Few studies investigate the direct link between drought and drought-related impacts on health and society, and little research has identified critical science gaps in the field of drought-society. This scoping review aims to explore the societal implications of drought and identify knowledge gaps for future drought-society studies. We performed a PRISMA scoping review with a four-element search model on articles published since 2010. We extracted drought impacts data from 74 articles. Results were synthesized into three main topical areas examining public health impacts, water quality impacts, and water quantity impacts. While studies were heterogeneous in terms of objectives and methods, they illustrated the full breadth of drought impacts. The current body of evidence lacks a standard set of drought indices that can be readily applied to evaluate and monitor societal impacts due to drought. The challenge of defining drought limits a holistic understanding of drought effects and recovery time. More interdisciplinary collaborations are needed to establishes community-wide consensus on the identification of relevant hydrological indicators that best describe an adverse outcome is an understudied research priority.}, number={3}, journal={CLIMATIC CHANGE}, author={Sugg, Margaret and Runkle, Jennifer and Leeper, Ronnie and Bagli, Hannah and Golden, Andrew and Handwerger, Leah Hart and Magee, Tatiana and Moreno, Camila and Reed-Kelly, Rhiannon and Taylor, Michelle and et al.}, year={2020}, month={Oct}, pages={1177–1195} }
 @article{lawrimore_wuertz_wilson_stevens_menne_korzeniewski_palecki_leeper_trunk_2020, title={Quality Control and Processing of Cooperative Observer Program Hourly Precipitation Data}, volume={21}, ISSN={["1525-7541"]}, DOI={10.1175/JHM-D-19-0300.1}, abstractNote={Abstract}, number={8}, journal={JOURNAL OF HYDROMETEOROLOGY}, author={Lawrimore, Jay H. and Wuertz, David and Wilson, Anna and Stevens, Scott and Menne, Matthew and Korzeniewski, Bryant and Palecki, Michael A. and Leeper, Ronald D. and Trunk, Thomas}, year={2020}, month={Aug}, pages={1811–1825} }
 @article{runkle_sugg_leeper_rao_matthews_rennie_2020, title={Short-term effects of specific humidity and temperature on COVID-19 morbidity in select US cities}, volume={740}, ISSN={["1879-1026"]}, url={https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140093}, DOI={10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140093}, abstractNote={Little is known about the environmental conditions that drive the spatiotemporal patterns of SARS-CoV-2. Preliminary research suggests an association with meteorological parameters. However, the relationship with temperature and humidity is not yet apparent for COVID-19 cases in US cities first impacted. The objective of this study is to evaluate the association between COVID-19 cases and meteorological parameters in select US cities. A case-crossover design with a distributed lag nonlinear model was used to evaluate the contribution of ambient temperature and specific humidity on COVID-19 cases in select US cities. The case-crossover examines each COVID case as its own control at different time periods (before and after transmission occurred). We modeled the effect of temperature and humidity on COVID-19 transmission using a lag period of 7 days. A subset of 8 cities were evaluated for the relationship with meteorological parameters and 5 cities were evaluated in detail. Short-term exposure to humidity was positively associated with COVID-19 transmission in 4 cities. The associations were small with 3 out of 4 cities exhibiting higher COVID19 transmission with specific humidity that ranged from 6 to 9 g/kg. Our results suggest that weather should be considered in infectious disease modeling efforts. Future work is needed over a longer time period and across different locations to clearly establish the weather-COVID19 relationship.}, journal={SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT}, publisher={Elsevier BV}, author={Runkle, Jennifer D. and Sugg, Margaret M. and Leeper, Ronald D. and Rao, Yuhan and Matthews, Jessica L. and Rennie, Jared J.}, year={2020}, month={Oct} }
 @article{leeper_bell_palecki_2019, title={A Description and Evaluation of US Climate Reference Network Standardized Soil Moisture Dataset}, volume={58}, ISSN={["1558-8432"]}, DOI={10.1175/JAMC-D-18-0269.1}, abstractNote={Abstract}, number={7}, journal={JOURNAL OF APPLIED METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATOLOGY}, author={Leeper, Ronald D. and Bell, Jesse E. and Palecki, Michael A.}, year={2019}, month={Jul}, pages={1417–1428} }
 @article{leeper_kochendorfer_henderson_palecki_2019, title={Impacts of Small-Scale Urban Encroachment on Air Temperature Observations}, volume={58}, ISSN={["1558-8432"]}, DOI={10.1175/JAMC-D-19-0002.1}, abstractNote={Abstract}, number={6}, journal={JOURNAL OF APPLIED METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATOLOGY}, author={Leeper, Ronald D. and Kochendorfer, John and Henderson, Timothy A. and Palecki, Michael A.}, year={2019}, month={Jun}, pages={1369–1380} }
 @article{leeper_bell_vines_palecki_2017, title={An Evaluation of the North American Regional Reanalysis Simulated Soil Moisture Conditions during the 2011-13 Drought Period}, volume={18}, ISSN={["1525-7541"]}, DOI={10.1175/jhm-d-16-0132.1}, abstractNote={Abstract}, number={2}, journal={JOURNAL OF HYDROMETEOROLOGY}, author={Leeper, Ronald D. and Bell, Jesse E. and Vines, Chante and Palecki, Michael}, year={2017}, month={Feb}, pages={515–527} }
 @article{kochendorfer_rasmussen_wolff_baker_hall_meyers_landolt_jachcik_isaksen_braekkan_et al._2017, title={The quantification and correction of wind-induced precipitation measurement errors}, volume={21}, ISSN={["1607-7938"]}, DOI={10.5194/hess-21-1973-2017}, abstractNote={Abstract. Hydrologic measurements are important for both the short- and long-term management of water resources. Of the terms in the hydrologic budget, precipitation is typically the most important input; however, measurements of precipitation are subject to large errors and biases. For example, an all-weather unshielded weighing precipitation gauge can collect less than 50 % of the actual amount of solid precipitation when wind speeds exceed 5 m s−1. Using results from two different precipitation test beds, such errors have been assessed for unshielded weighing gauges and for weighing gauges employing four of the most common windshields currently in use. Functions to correct wind-induced undercatch were developed and tested. In addition, corrections for the single-Alter weighing gauge were developed using the combined results of two separate sites in Norway and the USA. In general, the results indicate that the functions effectively correct the undercatch bias that affects such precipitation measurements. In addition, a single function developed for the single-Alter gauges effectively decreased the bias at both sites, with the bias at the US site improving from −12 to 0 %, and the bias at the Norwegian site improving from −27 to −4 %. These correction functions require only wind speed and air temperature as inputs, and were developed for use in national and local precipitation networks, hydrological monitoring, roadway and airport safety work, and climate change research. The techniques used to develop and test these transfer functions at more than one site can also be used for other more comprehensive studies, such as the World Meteorological Organization Solid Precipitation Intercomparison Experiment (WMO-SPICE).
                    }, number={4}, journal={HYDROLOGY AND EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCES}, author={Kochendorfer, John and Rasmussen, Roy and Wolff, Mareile and Baker, Bruce and Hall, Mark E. and Meyers, Tilden and Landolt, Scott and Jachcik, Al and Isaksen, Ketil and Braekkan, Ragnar and et al.}, year={2017}, month={Apr}, pages={1973–1989} }
 @article{quintanar_mahmood_suarez_leeper_2016, title={Atmospheric sensitivity to roughness length in a regional atmospheric model over the Ohio-Tennessee River Valley}, volume={128}, ISSN={["1436-5065"]}, DOI={10.1007/s00703-015-0415-z}, number={3}, journal={METEOROLOGY AND ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS}, author={Quintanar, Arturo I. and Mahmood, Rezaul and Suarez, Astrid and Leeper, Ronnie}, year={2016}, month={Jun}, pages={315–330} }
 @article{klotzbach_oliver_leeper_schreck_2016, title={The Relationship between the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) and Southeastern New England Snowfall}, volume={144}, ISSN={["1520-0493"]}, DOI={10.1175/mwr-d-15-0434.1}, abstractNote={Abstract}, number={4}, journal={MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW}, author={Klotzbach, Philip J. and Oliver, Eric C. J. and Leeper, Ronald D. and Schreck, Carl J., III}, year={2016}, month={Apr}, pages={1355–1362} }
 @article{bell_leeper_palecki_coopersmith_wilson_bilotta_embler_2015, title={Evaluation of the 2012 Drought with a Newly Established National Soil Monitoring Network}, volume={14}, ISSN={["1539-1663"]}, DOI={10.2136/vzj2015.02.0023}, abstractNote={Core Ideas
New US soil moisture network provides new opportunity to evaluate drought
Soil moisture at deeper depths did not fully recover from the 2012 drought in 2013
Soil moisture varied by region in the response to drought
The NOAA United States Climate Reference Network (USCRN) deployed soil moisture sensors during 2009 to 2011 to monitor the temporal and spatial variability of soil moisture at 114 locations in the contiguous United States. These new soil observations will enhance our understanding of changing soil conditions for better drought monitoring. One year after full deployment of the network, a large drought occurred across most of the United States and provided an opportunity to evaluate the utility of this network for drought monitoring. The soil moisture signal of the 2012 drought in the continental United States was detected nationally at all observational depths (5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 cm), with an overall 11.07% decrease from the average of the 2011 to 2013 summers. The top three depths (5, 10, and 20 cm) experienced the largest decrease in soil moisture. Although 2013 national precipitation totals returned to normal values and national soil moisture levels recovered from the 2012 drought, the national average soil moisture concentrations combined at the 50‐ and 100‐cm depths remained around 18% below pre‐drought levels. Regional analysis of the 2012 drought identified that the Upper Midwest, Northeast, Northern Rockies and Plains, and Ohio Valley climate regions were most impacted and demonstrated a temporal pattern similar to the national analysis. These results demonstrate the utility of using USCRN for monitoring national soil moisture conditions, assessing droughts, and tracking climate change with time.}, number={11}, journal={VADOSE ZONE JOURNAL}, author={Bell, Jesse E. and Leeper, Ronald D. and Palecki, Michael A. and Coopersmith, Evan and Wilson, Tim and Bilotta, Rocky and Embler, Scott}, year={2015}, month={Nov} }
 @article{leeper_kochendorfer_2015, title={Evaporation from weighing precipitation gauges: impacts on automated gauge measurements and quality assurance methods}, volume={8}, ISSN={["1867-8548"]}, DOI={10.5194/amt-8-2291-2015}, abstractNote={Abstract. Evaporation from a precipitation gauge can cause errors in the amount of measured precipitation. For automated weighing-bucket gauges, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) suggests the use of evaporative suppressants and frequent observations to limit these biases. However, the use of evaporation suppressants is not always feasible due to environmental hazards and the added cost of maintenance, transport, and disposal of the gauge additive. In addition, research has suggested that evaporation prior to precipitation may affect precipitation measurements from auto-recording gauges operating at sub-hourly frequencies. For further evaluation, a field campaign was conducted to monitor evaporation and its impacts on the quality of precipitation measurements from gauges used at U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) stations. Two Geonor gauges were collocated, with one gauge using an evaporative suppressant (referred to as Geonor-NonEvap) and the other with no suppressant (referred to as Geonor-Evap) to evaluate evaporative losses and evaporation biases on precipitation measurements. From June to August, evaporative losses from the Geonor-Evap gauge exceeded accumulated precipitation, with an average loss of 0.12 mm h−1. The impact of evaporation on precipitation measurements was sensitive to the choice of calculation method. In general, the pairwise method that utilized a longer time series to smooth out sensor noise was more sensitive to gauge evaporation (−4.6% bias with respect to control) than the weighted-average method that calculated depth change over a smaller window (
                    }, number={6}, journal={ATMOSPHERIC MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES}, author={Leeper, R. D. and Kochendorfer, J.}, year={2015}, pages={2291–2300} }
 @article{leeper_palecki_davis_2015, title={Methods to Calculate Precipitation from Weighing-Bucket Gauges with Redundant Depth Measurements}, volume={32}, ISSN={["1520-0426"]}, DOI={10.1175/jtech-d-14-00185.1}, abstractNote={Abstract}, number={6}, journal={JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY}, author={Leeper, Ronald D. and Palecki, Michael A. and Davis, Egg}, year={2015}, month={Jun}, pages={1179–1190} }
 @article{leeper_rennie_palecki_2015, title={Observational Perspectives from US Climate Reference Network (USCRN) and Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) Network: Temperature and Precipitation Comparison}, volume={32}, ISSN={["1520-0426"]}, DOI={10.1175/jtech-d-14-00172.1}, abstractNote={Abstract}, number={4}, journal={JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC TECHNOLOGY}, author={Leeper, Ronald D. and Rennie, Jared and Palecki, Michael A.}, year={2015}, month={Apr}, pages={703–721} }