The Qobs.txt file holds observations of discharge for selected points in the model domain. The discharge is assumed to correspond to the outflow from a subbasin. The outflow from a subbasin includes the effect of upstream inflows and lakes in the subbasin. The subbasin id (subid from GeoData.txt) is used to couple the observations to the model. When refering to observed flow for output or criterion calculation the HYPE variable ID rout correspond to the data of the Qobs.txt file.

The file is located in the otherobsdir folder set in info.txt. If the path is not set, the file is seached for in forcingdir. Discharge (m³/s) is given for consecutive timesteps for selected subbasins for a continuous time period which doesn’t need to cover the whole simulation time period. Missing values is denoted -9999.

The first rows of the file may be comment rows. They begin with '!!' to identify them as comment rows to be skipped when reading the file. The first row after the comment rows gives which subbasin (subid in GeoData.txt) the column’s data is given for. This row includes a text string (e.g. date, no spaces allowed) and then subbasin id(s). The first column is date in the format yyyy-mm-dd [HH:MM]. If set in info.txt that matlab-format should be read (readformat 1) the date format is yyyymmdd[HHMM]. The second to last columns are discharge for selected subbasins (i.e. not all subbasins are required).