Assessing Operational Forecasting Skill of EFAS
The European Flood Alert System (EFAS) is now producing probabilistic hydrological
forecasts in pre-operational mode for over 2 years at the European Commission Joint
Research Centre (JRC). EFAS is aiming at increasing preparedness for floods in transnational
European river basins by providing medium-range deterministic and probabilistic
flood forecasting information between 3 to10 days in advance.
It is providing EFAS information reports regarding forecasted riverine flood events to the
collaborating national hydro-meteorological services. Memoranda of Understanding (MoU)
for receiving these forecasts have been established for ca. 80% of the area of all
European trans-national river basins.
In this work 2 years of existing operational hydrological forecasts are being assessed
statistically and skill of EFAS is analysed in several ways. The goal is to show where the
strengths of such a large scale system lie but also where the limits of predictability and
limits of skill scores in this context are.
BARTHOLMES Jens;
THIELEN DEL POZO Jutta;
GENTILINI Simone;
2007-11-30
OPOCE
JRC37681
Additional supporting files
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