The following is a description of the latest operational release of EFAS v5.1. For 2, which was launched on 13 August 2024. For an overview of other EFAS releases, please see: EFAS versioning system.
Summary
EFAS v5.1 2 introduces several minor changes to the system, including:
- A new "Release News" pop-up that shows up on EFAS-IS when a new version of EFAS (minor and major) is released, including information on the release highlights and a link to the wiki for further information.
- Notification Feedback improvements, allowing EFAS partners to edit feedback they have submitted previously, allowing to specify the region for which the feedback was given (if the notification spans multiple), and a system for automatic notification reminders that will be rolled out shortly after the release day. See 4.4 How to provide feedback for details.
- Updates to EFAS Hydrological post-processing
- new calibration of all viable stations including 270 new stations (250 stations at 6-hourly and 20 stations at daily). Results are in obsolete EFAS v5.1 - Hydrological Post-Processing Calibration Evaluation page.
- updates to post-processed hydrographs based on feedback from the 18th EFAS Annual Meeting. See EFAS Reporting Points for an example.
- Increased offering of monitoring and forecast variables for EFAS made available through the Climate Data Store. See Model Output page for details.
- Runoff Water Equivalent (surface plus subsurface)
- Soil Wetness Index (root zone)
- Withdrawal of 'Volumetric Soil Moisture Content' variable from CDS (from EFAS v5.1 release onwards, 2024-03-20).
- Revised Notification criteria for Formal and Informal notifications:
- Optimised criteria for the issue of Formal and Informal notifications are based on a new methodology for the computation of the total probability of exceedance of the 5 yr RP threshold of the grand ensemble encompassing all Numerical Weather Predictions.
- Improved definition of the area of validity of Formal and Informal notifications.
- Revised layers in the EFAS Map Viewer:
- (a) 5-year exceedance < 48 h and 5-year exceedance > 48 h replace the layers Flood Probability < 48 h and Flood Probability > 48 h, respectively;
- (b) Flood probability layer replaces the former Flood probability persistence layer;
- (c) Reporting Points pop-up window has been updated to show total probability and grand ensemble.
- Improved EFAS notifications email to include a link to a preview feature in the Notifications Archive.
- Optimised criteria for the issue of Formal and Informal notifications are based on a new methodology for the computation of the total probability of exceedance of the 5 yr RP threshold of the grand ensemble encompassing all Numerical Weather Predictions.
- Stations metadata have been updated to better align them with the hydrological data collected by EHDCC.
- Updated flood protection levels layer using new information in EU member states
- Updated Major Rivers layer derived from 4 different datasets: FAO AQUASTAT, EU hydro, Natural Earth, and GRDC; improved visualisation of river network and river names.
- Updated documentation on FTP Access
- EFAS flood thresholds
- EFAS flood threshold made available on wiki at Auxiliary Data page.
- Bug fixes to flood threshold calculation
- New stations added to Reporting Points layer on EFAS-IS. EFAS-IS is now showing 3617 fixed reporting points (river gauges) for which the model drainage area is larger than 50 km2. This is an increase of 278 fixed reporting points compared to previous EFAS version.
- Revised ERIC Reporting Points
- The minimum upstream area for plotting a reporting point has been increased to 150 km2 (up from 50 km2 previously). This reduces the number of reporting points that are plotted.
Retirement of ERICHA products
ERICHA Flash Flood products will be phased out in favour of the improved TAMIR products which include radar-nwp blended precipitation, ensemble-based hourly forecasts and flood impact products. More details can be found in TAMIR flash flood nowcasting wiki page.
This upgrade of EFAS has no impact on the EFAS modelling results.
Technical details details
Pre-release date (available on stage platform) | 2024-07-03 |
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Release date | 2024- |
08- |
13 |
In test suite |
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n/a | |
EFAS internal number | 20 |
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Archiving of data | ECFS, MARS, CDS |
Reference climatology (for thresholds/ anomalies) | 1992-01-01 to 2022-12-31 |
EFAS Historical | 1992-01-01 to near present |
Reforecasts | tbc |
Horizontal projection | EPSG4326 |
Horizontal resolution | 0.01667 x 0.01667° |
Temporal resolution | 6-hourly |