The following is a description of the operational release of EFAS v5.2, which was launched on 13 August 2024. For an overview of other EFAS releases, please see: EFAS versioning system. 

Summary

EFAS v5.2 introduces several minor changes to the system, including:

• 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.

• 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

This upgrade of EFAS has no impact on the EFAS modelling results.

Technical details