AN all-season flash flood forecasting system for real-time operations

The article describes a coupled modeling system that considers the localized nature of many flash flood-producing storms, and the importance of snowmelt, and allows high temporal and spatial resolutions required for accurate flash flood prediction. The coupled model (called KINEROS/ hsB-SM) combines the Kinematic Erosion and Runoff (KINEROS) overland flow/channel routing model and the hillslope-storage Boussinesq Soil Moisture (hsB-SM) modular modeling frameworkFlooding is among the worst natural disasters in the US in terms of both economic costs and loss of human life. In KINEROS/hsB-SM, to preserve the regionalization impacts of localized rainfall events, as well as to better diagnose areas of partial saturation, the hsB model is applied for kilometer grid boxes and the rates of outflow are used to predict water transport between adjacent grid cells.