Author Archives: lindaspeight
The Scottish Flood Forecasting Service: 2014 in review
The decorations are up and the Christmas presents are wrapped but before we leave the SFFS in the hands of our dedicated meteorologists and duty flood forecasting hydrologists over the festive period, there’s just time to review what has been … Continue reading
Radar coverage and suitability for flood forecasting in Scotland
Radar is a powerful tool for observing rainfall over large areas in real time. It is also used to produce nowcasts (short range forecasts for the next 6 hours) which are used to provide flood warnings for rapidly responding catchments such … Continue reading
Surface water flood forecasting during the Commonwealth Games
We are pleased to report that the Glasgow surface water flood forecasting model ran successfully during the Commonwealth Games and throughout the summer. Luckily the weather during the Games was largely fine however there were occasions when the additional surface … Continue reading
BHS 2014 Challenging hydrological theory and practice and calling for better communicators
This week saw hydrologists from across the UK, and some overseas visitors, congregate in Birmingham for the 2014 British Hydrological Society Symposium. The Scottish Flood Forecasting Service was there presenting our recent experience of setting up and using the … Continue reading
Operational surface water flood forecasting model for Glasgow now live
After 18 months of hard work from ourselves, CEH Wallingford, Deltares, Met Office and the James Hutton Institute, our Glasgow surface water flood forecasting model is now operational (previous updates available here and here). We believe this is the UK’s … Continue reading
Engaging with hydrometeorology across Europe
In the SFFS we have 12 operational flood forecasting hydrologists working on a rota system as well as meteorologists on shift at the Met Office. Similar numbers of people are working in most countries across Europe and worldwide. Combine this … Continue reading
Surface water flood alerting: project update
In May we started a project to develop a pilot surface water alerting tool to use during the Commonwealth Games and to help inform our future plans for surface water flood forecasting in the SFFS. The first review stage of … Continue reading
International Conference on Flood Resilience and an award for the SFFS
The International Conference on Flood Resilience (ICFR) held in Exeter on 5-9th Sep bought together the complementary areas of building resilient town and communities, and improving preparedness through reliable flood models and forecasts. The opening keynote by Dr Hong-Yuan Lee, the … Continue reading
Recent flood impacts and forecasts: how well did we do?
You don’t have to look very far over the past few weeks to find people complaining about being caught out by heavy rainfall and flash flooding that wasn’t forecast, however the forecast from the Scottish Flood Forecasting Service and the … Continue reading
Surface water flood alerting for the Commonwealth Games
Following the previous posts on flash flood forecasting, the next step is to investigate how recent advances in the science of forecasting heavy rain shower events could be translated into a surface water alerting tool for responders. Surface water (or pluvial) flooding occurs … Continue reading
Scottish Flood Forecasting Service 