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Discussed in the following Daily reports:


 

1. Impact

During the last weekend of January massive precipitation hit southern Europe. Several cities in northern Italy were flooded (e.g. Pisa) and Austria, Croatia and Serbia experienced severe snowfall.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25992800

 

2. Description of the event

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titlez500 and t850 from 12-hour forecasts

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The plots above show precipitation forecasts (accumulated between step 6 and 18) for the same dates as above. Here the strong precipitation is apparent for the period.

3. Predictability

 

3.1 Data assimilation

 

3.2 HRES

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titlePrecipitation verification and HRES forecast

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The figures above show the 4-day precipitation accumulation (30 Jan-2 Feb) from HRES.

3.3 ENS

EFI from 29 Jan 00UTC for 31 Jan to 5 Feb (day 1-5). (We should produce the same to for the day before.)

3.4 Monthly forecasts

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titleWeekly precipitation anomalies

The figures above show the weekly anomaly of the precipitation for the 27 January to 2 February, from the monthly forecast system. For the central Mediterranean a wet anomaly is present 15-21 day forecast but for the northern Italy the anomaly first appear in the 5-11 day forecast.

3.5 Comparison with other centres


3.6 EFAS flood forecasts

See below the forecasts of EPIC, the flash flood component of EFAS, issued on the 29, 30 and 31 January 2014 at 00 UTC. A rather large area in the Central and North of Italy showed a significant probability to exceed the three warning threshold, corresponding to 2, 5, and 20 years.

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On the other hand, results show a clear underestimation in smaller river basins, partly due to model resolution issues. Indeed for EFAS hydrological forecasts, no flood alert is issued in river basins with upstream area lower than 4000 km2. See for example a comparison between EFAS forecasts and discharge observations in the Secchia River (1300 km2), where severe river flooding occurred.

4. Experience from general performance/other cases

 

5. Good and bad aspects of the forecasts for the event

 

6. Additional material

In Austria, the winter 2013/14 has been exceptionally warm and rather extreme in terms of the precipitation distribution to the south and north of the Alps. More information can be found here: ExtremeWinter_2013-14_Austria.pdf

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