Status:Ongoing analysisFinalized Material from: Linus Mohamed, Florian, Ivan
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http://intra.ecmwf.int/daily/d/dreport/2014/05/19/sc/
1. Impact
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Between 13 and16 May 2014, severe rainfall hit south-eastern Europe. The worst affected countries were Serbia and Bosnia - Herzegovina where the rain is said to be the worst for 120 years. Currently more More than 49 80 people have died in land-slides and the flooding following the rain and hundred of thousands were forced to leave their homes. A lot of lifestock died during the flooding. Heavy rainfall and strong winds also affected Austria, Slovakia and other neighbouring countries. |
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The month before the event had been wet.The figure below shows the accumulated precipitation in short (12-36h) control forecasts from 1 March to 27 May (black line) inside the box (44-45N,.18-20E, see below). The grey line represents the mean of the model climate for this area. For the second half of April and beginning of May more than 200 mm where accumulated. The rainfall causing the flood then appeared in mid May, and the ground was already saturated in the area.
The figures below show the analysis of soil moisture level 1,2,3 with 3 days apart, starting from 10 May. Here one can see that the ground was very wet already before the rainfall.
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The figures above show the modelled flow for river Sava, close to Beograd. The peak flow appear around 18-19 May, with a flow of 6500-7000 m3/s in the EFAS system (corresponding to ~500 years return period). Already the longest forecast covering this date (9 May) had a number of ensemble members with return period >20 years. After the rain fell 14-15 May the uncertainty got minimal (as the flood model for the initial conditions is driven by observed precipitation). The hydrological part of the event is described on http://hepex.irstea.fr/balkans-worst-floods-for-more-than-100-years/
4. Experience from general performance/other cases
- The flooding in central Europe 2013. Technical Memorandum soon finished about the casecan be found here. This case agrees about the underestimation of the extreme precipitation and the dependence of resolution.
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Discussion in Daily Report about the calculation of EFI (http://intra.ecmwf.int/daily/d/dreport/2014/05/20/sc/)
FD/RD presentation from Fernando about the weeks before the main event