Experimental Flood Forecasting System for Germany

An experimental, high-resolution flood-forecasting platform is being developed for selected catchments across Germany. The system delivers spatially and temporally detailed forecasts of high-impact heavy-precipitation events and flash floods, drawing on hydrological setups for 1 274 catchments from the CAMELS-DE data set.

For a subset of catchments, the project will add inundation mapping and impact-based flood forecasts in collaboration with the GFZ (German Research Centre for Geosciences), following the proof-of-concept demonstrated by Najafi et al., (2024) .

Short-Range Precipitation Forecasts (real-time)


Latest ECMWF Forecast for total weekly precipitation

Very Short-Range Precipitation Forecasts (TEST DATA)

SINFONY (Ensemble Nowcasting and NWP)

The German weather service (DWD) has established a pilot project (Seamless INtegrated FOrecastiNg sYstem - SINFONY) for the tracking and prediction of grid-based precipitation and convective cells (for up to 12 hours). The focus here is on improving forecasts for summer convective events, such as thunderstorms, which are often associated with heavy precipitation.


SINFONY is test data for which it does not guarantee any accuracy of content or constant technical availability. The German Weather Service (DWD) assumes no liability for the accuracy and completeness of the data and content or for the permanent availability of the services.


Methodology

The SINFONY data and products are of particular interest for scientific questions and developments by research institutes in the field of hydrological modeling, especially for flash floods. HI-CAM II will investigate the forecast skill of this product for forecasting floods in 200 basins in Germany for the extreme events of 2023, 2024 and 2021 Ahr flood. By using the SINFONY test data in the UFZ's research and development work, the DWD can obtain valuable information on the usefulness of the new SINFONY data. In addition, application-oriented use of the test data can also provide insights into possible problems or inadequacies in the data. The provision of this SINFONY test data by the DWD is intended to serve the scientific exchange (experience/expertise/know-how) with the institute and thus lead to the evaluation and improvement of the products as a basis for further value-added processes within the meaning of the Act on Access to Digital Geodata (Geodatenzugangsgesetz - GeoZG).


Proof-of-Concept

A recent publication in Nature Communications demonstrated the capability of a state-of-the-art, impact-based flood early warning system with a 10-meter resolution for the Ahr flood. The system utilized DWD's ICON-D2-EPS, comprising 20 ensemble members, to predict flood inundation areas and assess the risk to buildings and infrastructure. Building on this study, we will employ an integrated forecasting system within the framework of SINFONY PILOT. This system will incorporate high-resolution, high-frequency observations into the numerical weather forecast (NWV). Consequently, the update cycle of flood forecasting can be increased from 8 to 48 forecasts per day.

flood forecasting chain The state-of-the-art flood early warning system is extended with components of quasi-real-time hydrodynamic and impact forecasting (Figure taken from Najafi et al., (2024). High-resolution impact-based early warning system for riverine flooding. Nature Communications, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-48065-y


mHM

Hydrological ensemble forecasts are generated based on mesoscale hydrologic model (mHM). Basin-wise calibrations over Germany from (HI-CAM project) is used for model set-up. To generate the initial conditions of the hydrological forecast, mHM is forced with near real-time meteorological in-situ data from 1500+ stations provided by the German Weather Service (DWD). HS2S takes advantage of Multiscale Parameter Regionalization (MPR) to provide high resolution drought predictions.

UFZ Developer Team and Collaborators

The real-time flood forecasting system is under development by joint efforts of a team consisting of postdoctoral and senior researchers at CHS department of the UFZ and hydrology section of GFZ.

Service Manager:   Husain Najafi

Contact Person:   Luis Samaniego

UFZ Team: Husain Najafi, Mehrdad Mohannazadeh, Pallav Kumar Sherestha, Ehsan Modiri, Oldrich Rakovec, Stephan Thober, Luis Samaniego, and mHM team

GFZ team: Sergiy Vorogushyn, Nithila Devi Nallasamy, Tobias Weiß

HI-CAM II Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Sabine Attinger

Terms of Use, Copyright Disclaimer and License Agreement

  • All forecast maps disseminated by the UFZ team on this webpage are based on research experiments.
  • The right of use and exploitation of SINFONY DATA for UFZ is limited to non-commercial research purposes.
  • EVE cluster has been used for reproduction, loading, displaying, running, transferring and storing of SINFONY data
  • The results obtained from the use of the SINFONY test data may only be used for scientific purposes, e.g. to accompany scientific projects at UFZ in collaboration with GFZ.
  • The material on this website does not constitute legal or other professional advice.
  • Copyrights are placed in the text, images, and all other contents disseminated on this webpage.
  • Atmospheric forecasts are used for carrying out research purposes using real-time DWD products. They are disseminated to the UFZ under DWD License.