Ensembles of radar nowcasts and COSMO-DE-EPS for urban flood management

Journal
Water science and technology  
Volume
2017
Issue
1
Start Page
27
End Page
35
Citation
Water Science and Technology 1 (2017): 27-35 (2018)
Publisher DOI
10.2166/wst.2018.079
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85051202616
Sophisticated strategies are required for flood warning in urban areas regarding convective heavy rainfall events. An approach is presented to improve short-term precipitation forecasts by combining ensembles of radar nowcasts with the high-resolution numerical weather predictions COSMO-DE-EPS of the German Weather Service. The combined ensemble forecasts are evaluated and compared to deterministic precipitation forecasts of COSMO-DE. The results show a significantly improved quality of the short-term precipitation forecasts and great potential to improve flood warnings for urban catchments. The combined ensemble forecasts are produced operationally every 5 min. Applications involve the Flood Warning Service Hamburg (WaBiHa) and real-time hydrological simulations with the model Kalypso Hydrology.
Funding(s)
ReWaM - Verbundprojekt StucK: Sicherstellung der Entwässerung küstennaher urbaner Räume unter Berücksichtigung des Klimawandels, Teilprojekt 3  
More Funding Information
StucK (2015–2018; www.stuck-hh.de) is a joint project in the funding measure ‘Regional Water Resources Management for Sustainable Protection of Waters in Germany’ (ReWaM) sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).