High-resolution ensemble rainfall forecasts in urban hydrological applications

The use of Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts (QPFs) enables to improve the real-time control of urban drainage systems by extending the time available to prevent critical situations such as flooding or sewer overflow [1-5]. Often, these are caused by rainfall events developing within a short period of time, and therefore, short term rainfall forecasts with lead time less than 3 hours are most important in urban hydrological applications [6]. As opposite to single deterministic rainfall forecasts, ensemble QPFs are a number of forecasts valid at the same time, which can be expressed in probabilistic terms, thus providing information about the probability of occurrence of a given event. This might result relevant to the prediction of critical conditions within the sewer system in urban hydrological applications, while also modelling the QPFs inherent uncertainty.