flood forecasting centre: 10 years of operations, … · 2016 2012 2013 2017 2018 ... even in a...

© Crown Copyright 2019

FLOOD FORECASTING CENTRE: 10

YEARS OF OPERATIONS, WITH A

VIEW TO THE FUTURE

Charlie Pilling, Rob Cowling & FFC colleagues

BRITISH HYDROLOGICAL SOCIETY, OCTOBER, 2019

2011

2014

2015

2016

2012

2013

2017

2018

2019

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Flood Guidance Statement ‘Barcode’

3

Outline

• Background to the FFC, who we are and what we do

• Our timeline of the first ten years

• Learning reflections

• Ten years, ten stories

• A view to the future

4

• Summer 2007 - inland flooding

• Record breaking rainfall amounts

• Widespread severe flooding impacts

• Sir Michael Pitt recommended:

Background to the FFC

“The Environment Agency and the Met Office

should work together, through a joint centre,

to improve their technical capability to

forecast, model and warn against all sources

of flooding.”

5

Who we are and what we do

• Partnership between Met Office and Environment Agency

• Forecast flood risk for Category 1 and 2 responders in

England and Wales

• Forecast all natural sources of flooding

• Operational since April 2009 delivering 24/7 services

• Based in Met Office Headquarters, Exeter

• 50/50 EA/Met Office staffing

• Team of operational hydrometeorologists

“Providing trusted guidance to help protect lives and livelihoods from

flooding.”

6

Operations planning and

delivery

Exploiting science and technology

Engagement and services

Maintain 24/7 service, resilience. Embed new operational tools & WoW. CPD. Improve operational efficiency and effectiveness.

Through being informed by our partners & customers, develop & improve our services. Better identification of flood events covering multi-source and concurrent flooding. Influence R&D, esp. integrated modelling systems. Embed and optimise probabilistic forecasting.

Maintain our engagement & more direction from stakeholder evidence. Maintain FGS with targeted improvement based on customer evidence. Improve public offering. Promote our

open data.

7

Who we are and what we do

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• Hydromet Services for Local forecast centres

• Flood Guidance Services for Category 1 & 2

Responders and Flood Management Authorities

• Government Advisory Services

• Public forecast services

• Improvements and Engagement Work

• Training and exercises

Providing longer lead times for decision making

and taking action to protect communities

Our Services

9

10 YEARS OF THE FLOOD FORECASTING CENTRE

The first ten years…

11


Forecast flood risk 2012 - 2016

12

Summary of our experiences

• Long duration events - importance of health, safety & wellbeing.

• Professional training and experience underpins our service

delivery.

• Focussing on what decision makers need… to make decisions.

• Operating consistently across weather, flood forecasting and

warning community for clarity.

• Aligning information in a fast moving, social media world is hard.

• Blend of local and national information is important for

customers – we work in wider partnerships.


Learning Reflections

13


Ten years – ten stories

14


Flood Guidance -

shorter and sharper

2009 2019

15

• Summer storms → more intense

• >3 million properties at risk

• Forecasting surface water is challenging

• Working with Natural Hazards

Partnership

• Developing a Surface Water Flooding

Hazard Impact Model


Keep on moving –

Predicting surface water flooding

Complex urban hydrology

Convective events dominate

16

• Builds on pre-existing model, data and

tools

• Impact focussed

• Fully probabilistic → making use of best

available rainfall ensembles

• Spatial and temporal summaries of risk

• Operational by 2020 convective

season


Keep on moving –

Predicting surface water flooding

Surface Water Flooding Hazard

Impact Model

18


Providing flood risk guidance –

A view to the future

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Providing flood risk guidance – a view to the future

Curve showing Google trends normalised search frequency "flooding": (UK)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019 2021 2023 2025 2027 2029 2031 2033 2035 2037 2039 2041 2043 2045 2047 2049

Next 5-10years?

Within the next 30 years?

Today

20


Modelling and role of the forecaster

What we do now(the FGS)

The near future(5-10 years?)

The long term(within 30 years?)

Deterministic and ensemble

models, empirical tools strongly supported by

forecaster judgement

Reliable, verified ensembles

supporting hazard impact models

Forecaster judgement

remains essential.

High accuracy deterministic

forecasts in lead times relevant to

flooding? Forecaster role comms. focus?

21


Observed impact verification

What we do now(FGS verification)



Forecaster led judgement based

on disparate, incomplete and

sometimes contradictory information.

Tools that automate

collation impacts using big

datasets e.g. Twitter. More

objective.

Tools that can automatically recognise the value of the

forecast?

22


Observed impact verification

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▪ A ‘flood-rich’ 10 years, new records

▪ Increasing expectations - more with less

▪ Exposed to more extremes ‘weather/flood events’

▪ Even in a stationary climate, population increase,

urbanisation…..

▪ Surface water/rapid response flooding an increasing

challenge

▪ New technology / science – crowd sourcing/rapid data

assimilation

▪ Integrate flood sources

▪ Work with others to solve wicked problems


To conclude….

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Providing flood lead time

What we do now(the FGS)



As much as possible, all sources, all severities.

Lead time tailored to the severity of the

event.

Lead time tailored to

bespoke needs of individual

customers?

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Being innovative –

Getting Smart with Science

flood forecasting centre: 10 years of operations, … · 2016 2012 2013 2017 2018 ... even in a...

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