European Flood Awareness System (EFAS)#
The European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) is an initiative of the European Commission to increase preparedness for river floods across Europe.
The objective of EFAS is to gain time to take preparedness measures before major floods occur, especially in transnational river basins, both in Member States and at European level. This is achieved by providing complementary and value-added information to national hydrological services and by keeping the European Response and Coordination Centre informed about ongoing and potential floods across Europe.
Temporal and spatial resolution#
The forecast provides data for a different time and spatial horizon depending on the variable displayed.
Update frequency#
Data is updated in real time.
Available variables#
The following variables are available on the platform:
Reporting points#
Reporting points where forecast results are available:
Red squares (yellow) highlight stations where flow is forecast to exceed the 5-year EFAS return period (2 years).
Dark contours indicate a threshold exceedance in the next 2 days.
The labels show the ECMWF-ENS (left) and COSMO-LEPS (right) forecast probabilities and the forecast probability trend over the last 3 forecasts (arrows).
Grey squares (blue) are stations where forecast hydrographs (post-processed in real time) are available.
For these points, red (yellow) contours mean that the flow is expected to exceed the EFAS 5-year return period (2 years), but do not meet the criteria to be flood reporting points.
More information is available at:
Rapid risk assessment#
Potential impact of floods on population, land use (agriculture, urban) and infrastructure (main roads). Impacts are based on rapid flood mapping and aggregated in NUTS regions. The level of flood risk is derived from the combination of expected impacts and probability.
More information is available at:
ERIC Reporting points#
Reporting points showing the furthest downstream locations where the predicted probability [%] of extreme runoff accumulations exceeds a return period magnitude of 2 (yellow), 5 (red) or 20 (purple) years.
The enlarged triangles represent the location most prone to flash flooding within each management unit where the predicted probability is> = 30% of the 5-year return period and the earliest waiting time for the threshold probability exceedance to occur is <= 48 hours.
Persistence shows the number of previous forecasts, including the current one, where at least one reporting point in each administrative region has a forecast probability> = 30% of the 5-year return period.
More information is available at:
Observed daily rainfall accumulation#
Accumulated rainfall (mm) interpolated from observations, for 24-hours before the specified date (06 UTC to 06 UTC).
Average daily temperature#
Average daily temperature (°C) interpolated from observations, for 24-hours before the specified date (06 UTC to 06 UTC).
Simulated soil moisture#
LISFLOOD simulated relative soil moisture of the upper soil layer for the reference date based on observed meteorological input.
Note
Use with caution. Some areas may show extremely low soil moisture values. This is not affecting hydrological forecasts.
Simulated snow accumulation#
LISFLOOD simulated amount of snow [mm water equivalent] based on observed meteorological input.
Data sources#
Data provided by EFAS through the WMS protocol.