Forecasting Medium-range Flood Hazard on European Scale

The European Flood Alert System (EFAS) prototype has been running pre-operationally for all of Europe since 2005. EFAS is now providing 3-10 day probabilistic hydrological forecasts for 22 national hydrological services. Recently, the forecasts were also made accessible in real time to the EFAS partners via an interactive password-protected web-based information system (EFAS-IS). This article gives a short overview of EFAS and illustrates the communication tools that are used in this early warning system, and that were developed in close collaboration with the hydrological national services forming part of the EFAS network. Furthermore, some results of a long-term skill assessment are presented, which underline the positive aspects of using probabilistic forecasts for mid-range flood forecasts.JRC.A.1-Work programme E