Page History

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1. Impact

Last week, Sri Lanka faced very severe floods following heavy rains since Sunday, 2 June. Over 159,000 people were affected cross 13 districts. Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara, Matara, Ratnapura, Kegalle, and Galle are the worst hit areas.The floods have caused at least 17 deaths and five people to be missing. 

2. Description of the event

The monsoon rains began 3  weeks ago in that area, but intensified over that weekend, leading to a record 400 millimetres of rain in parts of the country which has led to floods and landslides. Flood alerts were in place for Colombo and other areas (although I could not see anything in Glofas, probably because they are small catchments). There were not too much information about these floods in the news, but I was in a workshop at that moment with some people from Sri Lanka and they highlighted it as a major and important event in the country. So they also provided me with some observation plots which helped me to better evaluate the extreme precipitation event. It seems that the registered precipitation was quite high on the 1st June, but also on the 2nd. Maps of the accumulated precipitation on the 1st June show peaks of more than 250 mm in areas of the southwest of Sri Lanka, and more than 200 mm the following day. In the Ogimet webpage I also found some available stations, but the maximum amount on the 1st is 163 mm an 52 mm on the 2nd June. 

3. Predictability

3.1 Data assimilation

3.2 HRES

3.3 ENS

3.4 Monthly forecasts

3.5 Comparison with other centres

4. Experience from general performance/other cases

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