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Gridded monthly rainfall estimates can be used for a number of research applications, including hydrologic modeling and weather forecasting. Automated interpolation algorithms, such as the “autoKrige” function in R, can produce gridded rainfall estimates that validate well but produce unrealistic spatial patterns. In this work, an optimized geostatistical kriging approach is used to interpolate relative rainfall anomalies, which are then combined with long-term means to develop the gridded estimates. The optimization consists of the following: 1) determining the most appropriate offset (constant) to use when log-transforming data; 2) eliminating poor quality data prior to interpolation; 3) detecting erroneous maps using a machine learning algorithm; and 4) selecting the most appropriate parameterization scheme for fitting the model used in the interpolation. Results of this effort include a 30-yr (1990–2019), high-resolution (250-m) gridded monthly rainfall time series for the state of Hawai‘i. Leave-one-out cross validation (LOOCV) is performed using an extensive network of 622 observation stations. LOOCV results are in good agreement with observations (R²= 0.78; MAE = 55 mm month⁻¹; 1.4%); however, predictions can underestimate high rainfall observations (bias = 34 mm month⁻¹; −1%) due to a well-known smoothing effect that occurs with kriging. This research highlights the fact thatmore »validation statistics should not be the sole source of error assessment and that default parameterizations for automated interpolation may need to be modified to produce realistic gridded rainfall surfaces. Data products can be accessed through the Hawai‘i Data Climate Portal (HCDP;http://www.hawaii.edu/climate-data-portal).

It can be expensive and difficult to collect direct bathymetry data for nearshore regions, especially in high-energy locations where there are temporally and spatially varying bathymetric features like sandbars. As a result, there has been increasing interest in remote assessment techniques for estimating bathymetry. Recent efforts have combined Kalman filter–based techniques with indirect video-based observations for bathymetry inversion. Here, we estimate nearshore bathymetry by utilizing observed wave celerity and wave height, which are related to bathymetry through phase-averaged wave dynamics. We present a modified compressed-state Kalman filter (CSKF) method, a fast and scalable Kalman filter method for linear and nonlinear problems with large numbers of unknowns and measurements, and apply it to two nearshore bathymetry estimation problems. To illustrate the robustness and accuracy of our method, we compare its performance with that of two ensemble-based approaches on twin bathymetry estimation problems with profiles based on surveys taken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer Field Research Facility (FRF) in Duck, North Carolina. We first consider an estimation problem for a temporally constant bathymetry profile. Then we estimate bathymetry as it evolves in time. Our results indicate that the CSKF method is more accurate and robust than the ensemble-based methods withmore »the same computational cost. The superior performance is due to the optimal low-rank representation of the covariance matrices.