Quality controlling daily read rainfall data for the Intensity-Frequency-Duration (IFD) revision project

The Intensity-Frequency-Duration (IFD) Revision Project, undertaken by the Bureau of Meteorology, utilised data from nearly 20,000 daily read rainfall stations to derive revised IFD design rainfall estimates. Automated quality controlling software was developed to assist with the task of quality controlling the records from the thousands of read daily rainfall stations. The software detected date shifts and accumulated totals (both identified and unidentified) and flagged other possible suspect data as gross errors for further checking. The flagged errors were checked manually using the Bureau's Quality Monitoring System and information from nearby neighbours, station metadata and paper based rainfall records as well as information from remote sensing such as satellite images and radar scans. Performance statistics were prepared to present a summary of the results of the manual checks of possible gross errors across Australia. These performance statistics will provide useful information for practitioners for projects where automated quality controlling of data is required.