Category Archives: Probabilistic
High Impact Weather and Climate Conference
High Impact Weather and Climate was the subject of the conference held by Royal Meteorological Society and National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of Manchester last week. Members of the forecasting service attended, along with many colleagues from … Continue reading
The 2005 Teviot floods: then and now
As previously reported Storm Desmond caused severe flooding over the weekend of the 5th and 6th December in parts of the country including the Teviot Valley. The River Teviot in Hawick recorded its second highest river flow on record and … Continue reading
Decision making in times of uncertainty: the crying wolf
Nikéh Booister presents the second and final part of this series on decision making in times of uncertainty. “The forecaster has to be the expert on knowing what uncertainties are and where they come from as we could have read … Continue reading
Heavy Rainfall Alerts – latest advances
In order to provide probabilistic forecasts of flooding from surface water the forecasting service has been using a Heavy Rainfall Alert (HRA) tool since 2013, as discussed in a previous article. The tool consists of a spreadsheet that is updated … Continue reading
Hydrometeorological forecasting and ex-tropical storm Bertha
On Monday 11th August, the remnants of the ex-tropical storm Bertha brought heavy and very intense rain for many parts of northern Scotland. Early indications are that over 100 mm of rain was recorded over a 12 to 16 hour … Continue reading
Staying alert in rain or shine
Last summer our Met Office coordinator Pete Buchanan produced a couple of articles about surface water flooding. In the second article he explained how our Heavy Rainfall Alert (HRA) Tool works. Here he gives us an update on further development of … Continue reading
Forecasting from Sea to Shore (Part 1): Learning from the past
In a winter that witnessed a succession of storms that have affected many parts of the UK, calls are being made to understand what lessons should be learnt in order to be better prepared for future storms. Given the longevity … Continue reading
Meteorological forecast data: define what’s best!
Following earlier posts on the Heavy Rainfall Alert tool, Peter Buchanan our Met Office forecasting service co-ordinator explains ‘what is best data!’ “The Met Office has had an operational numerical modelling capability for many years now. It runs a plethora … Continue reading
Forecasting with higher resolution rainfall forecasts; this winter’s first test
The flood forecasting service has been using Met Office ‘BestData’ rainfall forecasts in its hydrological forecasts since summer 2013. For deterministic forecasts this is a fairly straightforward amalgamation of gridded 1.5km UKV to 36 hours, and 4km Euro4 data out to 120 … Continue reading
Hydrometeorological science: forecasting in rapid response catchments
The problem of flash flooding from highland rivers is one with which the village of Comrie is all too familiar. More than 100 homes were evacuated in storms in August 2012 and once again that year in November. Some flood … Continue reading
Scottish Flood Forecasting Service 