26.9 FITTING REGRESSION EQUATIONS 693 ‘The best estimates of a and 8 are sought. Thus to minimize Do-s =Ti- @ + bP. (26.55) whete y, are the observed values and §, are the estimated values from Eq. 26.54, take partial derivatives as follows: 2{3 vi @ + emir} (26:56) af bi- @+ ax? (26.57) After carrying out the differentiations and summations, two equations result in @ and B, called normal equations. Dy-na- BD x, Day -oLn-pBst Solving Eqs. 26.58 and 26.59 simultaneously yields 0 (26.58) 0 (26.59) _Zy_ BEm oes a= = ¥- Bx (26.60) _ Exy— Bu yisn 6 eae (26.61) Recall the slope is p(a,/a,), or as estimated from sample data port (26.62) Se Also, the unexplained variance in the regression equation is a= a1 — p?) (26.63) the square root of which is the standard deviation of residuals (see Fig. 26.8) and is called the standard error of estimate, These can be estimated from pe leg — (26.64) n-2 LZ (26.65) or where y, and §, are as defined previously (see Eq. 26.55). ‘Many hydrologic variables are linearly related, and after estimating the regres- sion coefficients, prediction of y can be made for any value of x within the range of observed x values. Extrapolation outside the range is often performed but should be