Speaker
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William Watson PESenior Hydrologist | DOC/NOAA/National Weather Service/West Gulf RFCWilliam Watson is a senior hydrologist at West Gulf River Forecast Center (WGRFC), a role he has held since September 2025. In this role, he is responsible for providing river forecasts for all river basins between the Rio Grande and the Sabine River, along with providing impact-based decision support to core partners such as the USACE, river authorities, and the public. Prior to joining WGRFC, he spent four years as a hydrologist at the National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, AL, and three years as a meteorologist at the local NWS office in Portland, ME. Before joining the NWS, he earned his PE in Louisiana while working as a consulting civil engineer. He has a BS in Civil Engineering from Louisiana Tech University and a MS in Meteorology from Florida State University.
Local Time
- Timezone: America/New_York
- Date: Sep 18 2026
- Time: 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
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Convention Center First Floor
- 1901 N Shoreline Blvd, Corpus Christi, TX 78401
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Atlas 15 Rainfall Data
NOAA is transitioning from the regional, state-funded Atlas 14 precipitation frequency standard to the comprehensive, federally funded NOAA Atlas 15. The current Atlas 14 methodology, while foundational for civil engineering infrastructure planning, relies on piecemeal regional publishing and the assumption of statistical stationarity—limitations that lead to boundary discontinuities and fail to account for temporal trends in precipitation extremes. Enabled by the 2022 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, NOAA Atlas 15 introduces a seamless national dataset that incorporates temporal trends, offering more informed decision-making and improved uncertainty communication for critical infrastructure design. This presentation will provide an overview of the Atlas 15 development framework, insights from the 2024 Montana pilot study, and the projected rollout schedule for CONUS (2026) and OCONUS (2027) regions. Attendees will learn how this new standard aims to supersede existing estimates, providing engineers with consistent, future-ready precipitation frequency data for enhanced resilience in planning and design.
