Journal article
Intraseasonal predictability of the duration of flooding above National Weather Service flood warning levels across the U.S. Midwest
Hydrological processes, Vol.34(23), pp.4505-4511
11/15/2020
DOI: 10.1002/hyp.13902
Abstract
Unpreparedness is often the main cause of the economic and social damages caused by floods. To mitigate these impacts, short‐term forecasting has been the focus of several studies during the past decades; however, less effort has been paid to flood predictions at longer lead times. Here, we use forecasts by six models from the North American Multi‐Model Ensemble project with a lead time from 0.5 to 9.5 months to predict the seasonal duration of floods above four National Weather Service flood categories (“action,” “flood,” “moderate” and “major”). We focus on 202 U.S. Geological Survey gage stations across the U.S. Midwest and use a statistical framework which considers precipitation, temperature, and antecedent wetness conditions as predictors. We find that the prediction skill of the duration of floods for the “action” and “flood” categories is overall low, largely because of the low accuracy of the climate forecasts rather than of the errors introduced by the statistical models. The prediction skill slightly improves when considering the shortest lead times (i.e., from 0.5 to 2.5 months) during spring in the Northern Great Plains, where antecedent wetness conditions play an important role in influencing the generation of floods. It is very difficult to draw strong conclusions with respect to the “moderate” and “major” flood categories because of the limited number of available events.
We use seasonal forecasts by six models from the North American Multi‐Model Ensemble project to predict the seasonal duration of floods above four National Weather Service flood categories (“action,” “flood,” “moderate,” and “major”). The prediction skill of the flood duration for the “action” and “flood” categories is overall low, largely because of the low accuracy of the climate forecasts. The prediction skill slightly improves when considering the shortest lead times during spring in the Northern Great Plains, thanks to the role of antecedent wetness conditions.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Intraseasonal predictability of the duration of flooding above National Weather Service flood warning levels across the U.S. Midwest
- Creators
- Andrea Neri - University of Rome “La Sapienza”Gabriele Villarini - The University of IowaFrancesco Napolitano - University of Rome “La Sapienza”
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Hydrological processes, Vol.34(23), pp.4505-4511
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons, Inc; Hoboken, USA
- DOI
- 10.1002/hyp.13902
- ISSN
- 0885-6087
- eISSN
- 1099-1085
- Number of pages
- 7
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 11/15/2020
- Academic Unit
- Civil and Environmental Engineering; IIHR--Hydroscience and Engineering
- Record Identifier
- 9984066347602771
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