Often, water management decisions are based on hydrological forecasts, which are affected by inherent uncertainties. It is increasingly common for forecasters to make explicit estimates of these uncertainties. Associated benefits include the decision makers’ increased awareness of forecasting uncertainties and the potential for risk-based decision-making. Also, a more strict separation of respo...

A flash flood forecasting system has been developed which combines distributed modeling and statistical analyses to produce gridded forecasts of return periods. A distributed hydrologic model (DHM) coupled to a threshold frequency (TF) post-processor, DHM-TF, is currently being tested over a Maryland-centered domain, and has verified well against National Weather Service (NWS) flash flood warni...

Extreme weather events have become more frequent and are likely linked to increases in greenhouse gases and aerosols, which alter the Earth’s radiative balance and cloud processes. On 8–9 July 2013, a catastrophic flood devastated the mountainous area to the northwest of the Sichuan Basin. Atmospheric simulations at a convection-permitting scale with aerosols and chemistry included show that he...

The HYDROPTIMET Project, Interreg IIIB EU program, is developed in the framework of the prediction and prevention of natural hazards related to severe hydrometeorological events and aims to the optimisation of HydroMeteorological warning systems by the experimentation of new tools (such as numerical models) to be used operationally for risk assessment. The object of the research are the Mesosca...

Most current quantitative precipitation nowcasting (QPN) methodologies are deterministic in nature and convey little realistic information regarding the uncertainty in the forecast. For flood and streamflow forecasting applications it is important to understand and accurately represent this uncertainty (Smith and Austin, 2000). This will allow a greater deal of confidence in the use of precipit...

Broad-scale studies of climate change effects on freshwater species have focused mainly on temperature, ignoring critical drivers such as flow regime and biotic interactions. We use downscaled outputs from general circulation models coupled with a hydrologic model to forecast the effects of altered flows and increased temperatures on four interacting species of trout across the interior western...

BACKGROUND In the last several years, the National Weather Service (NWS) has undergone a massive modernization and reorganization effort, substantially changing the organization’s structure and the technologies used to produce forecasts. When the reorganization is completed in the year 2000, the NWS will have approximately 120 local weather forecast offices throughout the country (plus Puerto R...