Results of rainfall data acquisition and prediction
During the International RainGain workshop on “Fine-scale rainfall nowcasting” at Antwerp on 31 March 2014, methods and experiences with rainfall nowcasting were presented and discussed. The term “nowcasting” refers to forecasting over short time periods (around 1-2 hours). Current national rainfall forecasting systems do not consider the forecasting of extreme thunderstorms (extreme convective rain storms). They are very difficult to forecast in an accurate way because of their very local nature. For that reason, it is important (much more important than for river flood forecasting) to quantify and consider forecast uncertainties. Given the limited lifetime of extreme convective rain cells, the lead time for such forecasting is limited as well. The RainGain project made use of the Short Term Ensemble Prediction System (STEPS) to meet these needs. The system was further advanced for the purpose of urban flood nowcasting by the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium (STEPS-BE system, developed in cooperation with the Belgian PLURISK project) and by the UK MetOffice (precipitation nowcasting research). Additional information: See publication below. For a full list of publications, please visit our publications webpage.
- Foresti, L., Reyniers, M., Seed, A., Delobbe, L. (2015), ‘Development and verification of a real-time stochastic precipitation nowcasting system for urban hydrology in Belgium’, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, 12, 6831-6879
- Foresti, L., Seed, A. (2014), ‘The effect of flow and orography on the spatial distribution of the very short-term predictability of rainfall from composite radar images’, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 18, 4671-4686
- Schertzer, D., Tchiguirinskaia, I. (2014). ‘Multifractal Predictability and Forecasts’. Introductory lecture to the ERAD workshop on Heuristic Nowcasting Methods, Munich, 30-31 August 2014
- Ntegeka, V., Murla Tuyls, D., Wang, L-P., Foresti, L., Reyniers, M., Delobbe, L., Van Herck, K., Van Ootegem, L., Willems, P. (2015), ‘Probabilistic urban inundation nowcasting’, UrbanRain15 - 10th International Workshop on Precipitation in Urban Areas, Pontresina, Switzerland, 1-5 December 2015