case-studies – Page 2

A Month of Storms: Ciara, Dennis and Atmospheric Rivers

March 4, 2020 Rebecca Emerton Comments 0 Comment

Contributed by Helen Griffith, Dept of Geography & Environmental Science, University of Reading, UK. February 2020 has been announced as the wettest February on record for most of the UK[1]. The arrival of Storms Ciara and Dennis led to widespread flooding and the recovery is expected to cost the insurance industry over £225m[2]. Saturated soils combined with additional rainfall mean that, at the time of writing, over 100 flood warnings are still in place across England and Wales and the…

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Helping shape a new flood forecasting service in The wellington region, new zealand

February 5, 2020 Rebecca Emerton Comments 0 Comment

Contributed by Michael Cranston (RAB), Andy Brown (Greater Wellington Regional Council) and Bapon Fakhruddin (Tonkin and Taylor). The flooding challenge in Wellington Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) are embarking on a programme to establish improved flood forecasting services across the Wellington Region on New Zealand’s north island. Flooding is considered New Zealand’s number one natural hazard with flood emergencies estimated to have cost $17 million a year in insurance payments and $15 million in emergency management expenditure between 1968 and…

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Large ensemble simulations for the study of extreme hydrological events

February 27, 2019 Rebecca Emerton Comments 0 Comment

Contributed by Karin van der Wiel, KNMI*. The investigation of extreme hydrological events is often limited by the length of observed records or model simulations. For this reason many statistical extrapolation methods have been developed. In a recent GRL paper we advocate a novel method for the study of extreme events, which does not rely on such extrapolations (Van der Wiel et al., 2019). In this blog post I invite you to take a slight step outside the HEPEX world…

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Summer 2018 in Europe: did the EFAS seasonal outlook predict low river flows?

September 6, 2018 Rebecca Emerton Comments 0 Comment

— this post is jointly published on the blogs of HEPEX and the European Drought Centre — Contributed by Louise Arnal (ECMWF and University of Reading), Shaun Harrigan (ECMWF) & David Lavers (ECMWF). Summer 2018 in Europe was remarkable from a hydroclimate perspective, with large regions experiencing persistent dry conditions, very little to no rainfall for extended periods, a series of heatwaves with record-breaking temperatures and numerous wildfires (in the UK, Sweden, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Latvia and Germany, among others)….

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Using ensemble forecasts to inform risk-based operations of a reservoir in Northern California

April 11, 2018 Andy Wood Comments 3 comments

Contributed by: Chris Delaney, Sonoma County Water Agency; John Mendoza, Sonoma County Water Agency; Brett Whitin, California Nevada River Forecast Center; Rob Hartman, Consultant Lake Mendocino is a reservoir located in Mendocino County, California, about 110 miles north of the City of San Francisco. This small 144 million cubic meter reservoir (Figure 1) releases water into the Russian River and provides both flood protection and water supply to downstream communities. Lake Mendocino is cooperatively managed by 2 government offices: the…

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