Tailoring SINFONY forecasts and other DWD products to flood forecasting applications following a co-design approach

To improve the prediction of small-scale flooding events with high societal impacts that may result from heavy precipitation associated with severe convective storms, Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) is strengthening its collaboration with Germany´s flood forecasting authorities.

With its focus on the seamless and probabilistic prediction of severe summertime convective events and associated heavy precipitation, DWD´s novel Seamless Integrated Forecasting System (SINFONY) is considered as a major step towards improving precipitation information for the forecast range from minutes to approx. 12 hours. To ensure a significant contribution of our newly developed SINFONY data and products for hydrological applications, in particular the prediction of flash floods, the SINFONY team is in a continuous dialogue with users from flood forecasting centres. One of the main objectives thereby is to identify user requirements and to utilize this information for targeted development of forecast products. In addition, users are supported in implementing those data and products in their models and decision processes.

Starting from this year, the above-mentioned activities within SINFONY will be complemented by a research project for augmenting the hydrometeorological value chain through co-design. This project is jointly developed and conducted by DWD and operational German flood forecasting centres, and funded in the context of DWD´s new research Programme “Italia – Deutschland science-4-services network in weather and climate”. The activities within the project stretch across the value chain for the generation of hydrometeorological forecasts. They aim for i.) a user-oriented evaluation and optimization of DWD´s precipitation forecasts (SINFONY, ICON-D2-EPS,…); ii.) the implementation of functionalities and processes optimised to the needs of flood forecasting centres into the DWD´s new warning system; iii.) the evaluation of DWD (new) data and products within operational flood forecasting applications; vi.) the harmonisation of precipitation and flood warnings; v.) the improvement of the communication and perception of forecasts and warnings.

With this poster presentation we will provide an overview of the ongoing and commencing activities described above. We are also interested in an exchange with participants of ECSS 2023, working on the intersection between meteorology and hydrology, to learn about their experiences.