Flood Forecasting Methodology in Alberta

Evan Friesenhan, M.Eng., P.EngAlberta Environment and Sustainable Resource

Development

April 29, 2014

River Forecast Centre Mandate

– Real-time flow forecasting and support to partners • Public• Municipal/Community Emergency Managers• Industry• Federal/Provincial organizations

– Near real-time data quality management• Real time data corrections and adjustments• assist in prioritized field maintenance of

monitoring network

– Daily Natural Flow Forecasting– Water Supply

To provide Albertans with information related to current and future river or river ice conditions to enable Albertan's to make decisions related to water supply, and emergency response planning.

Open Water Forecasting Operations - Data• 400+ Hydrometric stations – 146 model forecast points• 630 Meteorological stations

Elbow River below

Glenmore Reservoir 2013

Elbow River at

Bragg Creek 2013

ESRD Temporary Station – Medicine Hat 2013

Open Water Forecasting Operations - Weather Forecasts

• Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD)– Fire Weather Office – twice daily briefings; duty forecaster

• Environment Canada – Regional and Global models, Significant Weather Discussions issued by the Prairie and Arctic Storm Prediction Center

• NOAA – Modeling and Guidance, Unisys, Intellicast, etc.

Open Water Forecasting Operations - General• Primary river flooding concerns are caused by:

– Significant rainfall events and significant rain on snow events• Based on weather and river conditions, the River Forecast Centre will enter 24x7

operations to provide forecasting services as required• Rotation period: mid-March to mid October• Typical Critical Time Period: mid-May to mid-July

Red Deer River 2013 Highwood River upstream of High River 2013Waiparous Creek 2013

(June 20th and 21st)

River Forecast Centre Event Operations:Stage 1 – Anticipation of Major Storm

• Discuss weather forecast and model results, assess basins for areas of concern– Timing, duration, location, intensity, amount of forecast precipitation

• Allocate RFC staff to support 24/7 Operations• Notify GOA water managers and support teams, as well as municipal

authorities with a flood risk.• Information in

Forecaster’s Comments

Sheep River at

Black Diamond 2013

River Forecast Centre Event Operations:Stage 2 – Flood Event

• Alert internal and external clients– Directly call municipal emergency managers and water managers– Issue Advisories, Flood Watches or Flood Warnings, as necessary– All advisories issued via Alberta Emergency Alert – Local Authorities,

Media• Quantitative Forecasts

– Time, peak flow rate range, water level change • Continue to provide situational updates to

emergency management groups, public.• 24x7 operations: QA/QC, update models,

field coordination, Alerts, Forecaster’s Comments, Advisories.

Red Deer River near Sundre 2013

RFC Flood Operations Methodology

RFC Flood Operations Methodology

RFC Flood Operations Methodology

RFC Flood Operations Methodology

Forecaster’s Comments

• Provide information and context for areas of current interest throughout the province regarding: – the current and forecast weather

conditions;– the current and forecast river conditions,

including any advisories in place;– Links to additional information including

water level data, water supply information, precipitation maps, etc.

• Updated a minimum of two times a week or as conditions (current or forecasted) within the province change.

Advisories, Flood Watches & Flood Warnings

• Issued as current or forecast river conditions warrant.

• Contains information relating to what is occurring or is forecast to occur along the rivers under an advisory.

• Available on our website and via the Alberta Emergency Alert system.

Open Water Forecasting Operations – 2014 Spring Conditions

Open Water Forecasting Operations – 2014 Spring Conditions (Plains Melt)

Open Water Forecasting Operations – 2014 Spring Conditions (Mtn Snow)

Open Water Forecasting Operations – 2014 Spring Conditions

2014 Projects

• Lessons Learned and Partner Engagement Workshops:– Discussion with municipalities, First Nations communities and other

partners regarding the June 2013 southern Alberta Flooding.– Provided with information regarding what occurred in each community,

how they responded, what they learned and how the River Forecast Centre can better support the communities in the short and long term.

– Community specific river fact sheets, Information portal

• Performance Measures Project:– Focused on Investigating world wide best practices of river forecasting.– Investigation into current performance measures used by existing

operational flood forecasting groups around the world as well as documentation of current programs and computer models being used and why they have been selected.

2014 Projects

• Assessing Flood Risk based on changes in Rainfall/Runoff Characteristics: – Investigating how changes in duration and intensity of rainfall affect the

timing of flood events in specific communities.– This will provide a greater understanding of the communities and areas

which are at risk of flash flooding events, as well as potential forecasting lead times.

• Weather Forecast Variability Project:– Evaluating the effect that variations in weather forecast have of river

forecasts.– It has been shown that there is a possibility that weather forecast/model

variability can impact forecast precipitation totals and intensities, which in turn impact forecast river flows and levels.

2014 Projects

• Rainfall Intensity Alarms (on +40 sites)• Prototype to the use of the Weather Research & Forecast (WRF)

Model– hourly precipitation forecasts, provided four times daily for the max, min

and average scenarios for each river sub-basin that we model.• Environment Canada Collaboration:

– Converting gridded weather model data to model input/web

Medicine Hat WSC shack: High water mark and 5500

m³/s predicted level est.

Government of Alberta Water Management Reservoir Sites

• Preparedness– Ongoing monitoring of reservoir inflow potential (snowpack,

snowmelt, rainfall)– Emergency preparedness planning meetings with Local

Governments and Stakeholders

• Communications– Review and assessment of communication tools for downstream

stakeholders– Dam Operator’s blog site (pilot in development)

Dickson Dam Site Red Deer River

Oldman Dam Site Oldman River

Oldman Dam Public Open House

May 15, 2014(near Pincher Creek)

Dickson Dam Public Open House

May 14, 2014(near Innisfail)

2014 Projects Cont’d

• Communication Tools Improvement– Current Tools

• Single “Provincial Flood Advisory” through Alberta Emergency Alerts

– New Tool• Alberta Rivers Mobile App (May 2014)

Alberta Rivers

River Basins Mobile App

Map view - launch

Map view - zoom

Station shelf - expanded

Data - expanded

Advisories

MyStations

Map - launch

Shelf

Definitions

Forecaster’s Comments

Help

Thank you