Brett Whitin

One of my primary duties as the CNRFC service coordination hydrologist (SCH) is being the liaison to our core partners. Some of these main duties include 1) pre-event coordination, 2) post-event analysis and discussion, 3) education and outreach regarding our products & services, 4) gathering partner feedback, and enhancing services in coordination with our staff.

I am also the main point of contact for media inquiries. I have given numerous interviews to newspapers, television stations, podcasts, etc. I’ve also, participated in the national spring flood outlook media days.

I have continued to play an active role at the local, regional, and national level related to HEFS research & development, operational applications, and service delivery. I continue to be the office focal point for the HEFS national team. I am also the Western Region representative on the HEFS Advisory Team, helping oversee the research & development efforts through CIROH and other entities. I have led many HEFS verification efforts related to short-term flooding and long-range water supply. I have participated/presented in a number of HEFS training webinars.

I remain heavily involved in numerous FIRO studies throughout California including Lake Mendocino, Lake Sonoma, Seven Oaks Dam, Prado Dam, and the Feather-Yuba. This involves technical consultation amongst many subgroups. I also continue to provide hindcasting services for these FIRO projects.

I have presented at many conferences including NHWC, FIRO Workshops, CA Cooperative Snow Surveys Meetings, HEPEX, etc. I’ve also presented to many stakeholders within the Western United States

My primary operational duties included producing river and reservoir inflow forecasts using CHPS software, quality controlling observed precipitation, temperature, and stream gauge data, rating curve updating, model state updating, and coordination with partners/stakeholders.

I was involved in a wide variety of other development projects including the lead NWS representative on the Folsom Dam Water Control Manual Update. My contributions included plan formulation, creating/analyzing hindcast data, and deriving hypothetical flood events. It was the first USACE reservoir in the country to approve the use of Forecast Informed Reservoir Operations.

I was also a large contributor to maintenance and enhancement of the CNRFC CHPS models. I was the CNRFC POC on the national HEFS development team. I have been involved in many hydro model re-calibration efforts.

I was a member of the Feather-Yuba Forecast Coordinated Operations (FCO) multi-agency team. I also was involved with the Feather-Yuba FIRO project which is a parallel effort to the FCO. Some of my contributions included HEFS hindcast production, and assisted in ways to improve the gauging network, and forecast products. I was a significant team member on other FIRO projects including the Russian River and the Santa Ana - Prado Dam.

I have presented at a number of workshops and conferences including AMS and the California Extreme Precipitation Symposium related to ensemble streamflow forecasting and FIRO. I have also co-authored a few journal articles.

The primary duty for this job involved providing real-time hydrologic forecasts for major river systems within the southeastern US. Through this job I became familiar with the Linux and the NWS AWIPS operational environment.

I became proficient with the SAC-SMA soil models, and a number of other operational software packages including FLDWAV, MPE, and CAVE.

I wrote technical papers related to Southeast droughts, and presented at the 2008 Georgia Water Resource Conference. I presented to local media, federal partners, field offices, and school groups on a variety of topics.

I provided valuable incident support during the April 2009 Suwannee River flood where I worked with both USGS and the state of Florida employees to develop real-time inundation mapping procedures and products.

I was involved in hydrologic model calibration, hydrologic routing development, rating curve development, and other forecasting improvement efforts.

I was in charge of the HADS data system maintenance program which involved coordination with many staff in the office along with NWS Weather Forecast Offices, the USGS, and the NWS HADS team.

I converted existing FLDWAV models into HEC-RAS. Through this effort I have had to coordinate with a wide variety of federal agencies including the USACE, NOAA, and the USGS, along with a number of state agencies and counties. I linked SERFC one-dimensional hydraulic models with both tropical and exrra-tropical information to improve downstream boundary condition estimates. I also provided training to SERFC staff on how to use this information operationally.

I was involved in a number of flood damage reduction and ecosystem restoration projects, serving as a lead hydraulic engineer in the construction and feasibility stages including the Napa River Flood Control Project, Orestimba Creek Feasibility Project, the American River Flood Damage Reduction Projects, and the Sacramento Streambank Protection Project.

As a lead hydraulic engineer I was responsible for performing, delegating, and overseeing engineering work within the Hydraulic Design Section. I was also responsible for writing, managing, and overseeing contracts with engineering firms along with managing project budgets. I also participated in many team meetings involving local sponsors and other local, state, and federal stakeholders.

I was involved in a large two-dimensional RMA2 modeling effort of the Yolo Bypass located in the central valley of California. This model served as a tool to assess hydraulic impacts due to implementation of restoration projects within the bypass.

Through these various roles, I have become proficient in HEC-RAS, Microstation, Inroads, ArcGIS, SMS & RMA2. I have also had limited experience with a two dimensional finite difference program called FLO-2D.

In this position I served as a senior water management specialist responsible for the water control and operations of many reservoirs within the central valley of California.

I also served as a lead hydrologist on the Sacramento & San Joaquin Comprehensive Study which was the nation's largest general investigation study at the time. I was a lead engineer on a number of other feasibility studies and floodplain mapping studies. As a lead engineer, I was responsible for technical analysis, delegating and overseeing work by other engineers, leading/participating in many meetings involving local sponsors, stakeholders, and other governmental agencies, presenting at conferences, and participating at public meetings.

I also served as the USACE lead representative on a joint agency project involving the NWS-CNRFC, State of California, Yuba Water Agency, and the USACE called the Forecast-Coordinated Operations Study. The focus of the project was to enhance the coordination and operations for the Feather and Yuba River flood control system. One component involved enhancements to the HEC-ResSim program for use in real-time flood operations and integration into the NWS flood forecasting system. I played a lead role in promoting ResSim as the software packaged of choice for this project. I was also integral in determining required software improvements to ResSim in order for it to be used in an operational mode. Through this position, I have become proficient in HEC-5, ResSim, HEC-DSSVue, Excel, and statistical methods.