Evaluation of past, present and future tools for radar-based flash-flood prediction in the USA

Abstract The societal impacts of flash floods are more significant than any other weather-related hazard. They are often manifested in the form of damage to infrastructure, flooding of roadways and bridges, creating deadly hazards to motorists and inundation of crops and pasture. Some of these hazards can be anticipated and thus mitigated given effective warning systems. This study describes the tools proposed over recent decades in the USA to predict flash flooding and evaluates them using a common observational data set. Design recommendations for flash-flood forecasting systems are provided, taking into account today's availability of high-resolution rainfall data at scales commensurate with flash flooding, their archives, spatial data sets to describe physiographic properties, and ever-increasing computational resources. Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Guest editor R.J. Moore Citation Gourley, J.J., Flamig, Z.L., Hong, Y., and Howard, K.W., 2014. Evaluation of past, present and future tools for radar-based flash-flood prediction in the USA. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 59 (7), 1377–1389. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2014.919391

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