European Flood Awareness System EFAS Bulletin August – September 2018 Issue 2018(5) EUROPEAN FLOOD AWARENESS SYSTEM: Bimonthly Bulletin – Issue 2018(5) 2 EUROPEAN FLOOD AWARENESS SYSTEM: Bimonthly Bulletin – Issue 2018(5) NEWS Meetings Announcements Kick-off of the DAREFFORT project EFAS Annual Meeting 2019 The 14th EFAS annual meeting will take place in Stresa by Marcel Zvolenský, SHMU and Peter Salamon, JRC (Italy) 21-22 May 2019. The official invitation with de- tailed information about the event, registration form, None of the flood risk mitigation measures serves bet- reimbursement information, accommodation and ter the protection of human lives and the social estate travelling will be sent later this year. The meeting will than extending the preparation time to avoid catastro- be organized under the umbrella of the Copernicus phes. Reliable hydrological data is the basis of sound Emergency Management Services (EMS). It will start on forecasting system in any country. The most cost-effec- Tuesday 21 May in the morning and end on Wednes- tive non-structural tangible solution which highly day 22 May in the afternoon. The annual meeting will reflects the solidarity principle is the improvement of offer workshops and trainings that will address differ- forecasting capabilities on basin-wide scale. The ent EMS-related interests. A common meeting of all DAREFFORT project (Danube River Basin Enhanced services: mapping, flood, forest fire, and drought is Flood Forecasting Cooperation) is a horizontal initiative planned for the morning of day 1. If you have any ques- to implement a flood risk mitigation measure through tions please contact the technical organizer: Michaela a common hydrological database in a joint and sustain- Mikulickova: [email protected] able way on catchment level for the whole Danube region. On the 13 - 14 September 2018, the GloFAS becomes operational DAREFFORT project kick-off meeting took place in Bu- On the 14 November, the Global Flood Awareness Sys- dapest. tem (GloFAS) will become fully operational. The new release will contain a new calibration of the routing, a The project is led by a Hungarian state owned non- n improved reference simulation of discharge and a profit organization VIZITERV which will cooperate with better availability of the archived forecasts. For more 12 partners and the same number of associated part- information, please see here. ners from 9 EU countries, 1 accessing country (Serbia) and 2 neighbouring countries (Ukraine and Moldova), EFAS and GLOFAS tutorials covering nearly the whole Danube region. 10 out of the If you need to freshen up on the EFAS and GloFAS fore- 18 partners/associated partners are also EFAS partners casts, remember that there are a number of tools to and, in addition, the JRC is linked to the project as inter- help you, including the YouTube videos available for national associated strategic partner ensuring that the EFAS and GloFAS. DAREFFORT project benefits from the extensive experi- ence in EFAS on international data exchange and river New features basin wide flood risk management. Expected lifespan of A new EFAS version (v16) was implemented on 10 Oc- the project is from 1 June 2018 until the end of May tober 2018. This included updated ERIC layers and the 2021 (total duration 36 months). criteria for EFAS flash flood notifications. For more de- tails, see feature article in this bulletin. Further, EFAS The main deliverable of the project is to establish a forecasts are now archived in ECMWF meteorological standardized international hydro-meteorological data archiving system (MARS) which will allow for easier ac- exchange platform, which can improve the quality and cess to EFAS output to partners and the public. Note efficiency of forecast services including EFAS. This that access to archived data still follows the rule of ac- would feed a public near real time system – DanubeHIS cess to EFAS data. A longer article as well as details supported by the ICPDR – that provides data for flood regarding the release of the new EFAS website will be risk management or for any water related scientific ac- presented in the next EFAS bulletin. tivities. For more information please visit the official project website: http://www.interreg-danube.eu/ap- New partners proved-projects/dareffort. We gladly welcome the Icelandic Meteorological Of- fice as new EFAS partner. 3 EUROPEAN FLOOD AWARENESS SYSTEM: Bimonthly Bulletin – Issue 2018(5) RESULTS the western coastline of Norway and parts of north- eastern Europe (Figure 6 and Figure 7). The area with Summary of EFAS Flood and Flash Flood Notifications very high precipitation amounts in eastern Georgia is a result of faulty measurement. The countries south of The 4 informal EFAS flood notifications issued in Au- the Black Sea had drier than normal conditions. The gust-September 2018 are summarised in Table 1. The drought situation in Germany which started in Febru- locations of all notifications are shown in Figure 19 in ary is still ongoing. The accumulated precipitation sums the appendix. indicated a maximum of 514.1 mm on the western coastline of Norway and the Alps. The average rec- 1 flash flood notification were issued from August to orded temperatures ranged from -1.8°C to 37.5°C in September 2018, summarised in Table 1. The location southern Europe, parts of Africa and Asia (Figure 10). is shown in Figure 21 in the appendix. In Iceland, Norway, eastern Europe and northern Alge- ria it was colder than normal, in the rest of Europe Meteorological situation temperatures were generally above the average (Figure 11). by EFAS Meteorological Data Collection Centre September August The beginning of September, Scandinavia was mostly In the beginning of the month low-pressure systems influenced by high-pressure systems moving east- dominated the weather in Europe and led to several wards. Later, a very strong low-pressure system flood events after heavy hail- and thunderstorms in dominated the weather conditions 11 September and eastern Germany, Austria, Sardinia, and Corsica. On onwards. In other regions of Europe, northern Africa the French island of Corsica, a flash flood in a canyon and parts of Asia, low-pressure and high-pressure sys- killed five canyoners near Soccia. In addition, a storm tems alternated. On 8 September, extreme rainfall front moved across France, Germany and Turkey be- caused flash floods in the small town of Cebolla, Toledo tween 9 and 10 August. This front brought more than Province, in the autonomous community of Castile-La 100 mm of rain within 1 hour to the Rhône Valley, Mancha, Central Spain. A flood event caused by very France, and led rivers to overflow, resulting in 1,600 strong low-pressure cells occurred in the eastern Alge- evacuations and one missing person. High precipitation rian province of Tebessa on 12 September. More than amounts were also recorded in northern Turkey which 50 mm of rain were measured in Tebessa in just one caused severe flooding in Ordu Province. One person hour. died in a landslide triggered by heavy rain in Ikizce dis- trict. In some areas, more than 100 mm of rain were The next flood event occurred in the southern Spanish measured within 24 hours. After this, high-pressure town of Ronda, in the Malaga Province on 13 Septem- systems were slowly expanding, especially over north- ber. Streets in Ronda turned to rivers after a short eastern Europe and parts of Scandinavia. period of high precipitation amounts with up to 50 mm in 30 minutes. On the same day, a storm caused major Mid-month a strong low-pressure system formed over flash-floods in Balikesir Province, Turkey. More than eastern Spain and led to severe floods after heavy 147 mm of rain were measured in the city of Bandirma. thunderstorm in the Province of Alicante. Southern It- Overall, a wide area of the Marmara region, including aly was also affected by floods on 20 August. After Istanbul, was hit by hail during this storm which dam- flash-floods in the Region of Calabria, near Civita in the aged buildings, roof tiles and windows. Province of Cosenza, at least 10 hikers died. Towards the end of August northern Europe and western parts Mid-month high-pressure systems were located over of Scandinavia were mostly influenced by a stable low- the whole of Europe, except Scandinavia. Flash floods pressure system. The rest of Europe experienced alter- caused by heavy rain due to low pressure systems over nating high- and low-pressures, which led to a heavy northeastern Algeria on 19 September. Three days thunderstorm in southern Germany on 30 August. later storm Brian, a powerful tropical-like cyclone re- ferred to as a Mediterranean hurricane or ‘Medicane’, Overall precipitation anomalies displayed wetter con- caused flash floods in northern Tunisia which resulted ditions in countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, 4 EUROPEAN FLOOD AWARENESS SYSTEM: Bimonthly Bulletin – Issue 2018(5) in five fatalities. Nabeul Governorate was the worst af- Most of stations that registered discharge values above fected area with up to 197 mm in 24 hours. the 90% quantile were located across the south-east- Towards the end of September, the weather situation ern Danube river basin (Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria), changed, and low-pressure systems developed gradu- Guadalquivir, Llobregat and Ebro river basins in Spain ally but were eventually replaced by another strong and basin rivers across Norway (Figure 14 and Figure high-pressure system moving easterly. A new strong lo- 16). This occurred less frequently for stations located cal low-pressure system named storm Zorba caused on basins in southern England, western Danube river around 140 mm of rain in 24 hours in Greece (see re- basin, Rhine river basin in Germany, Guadalquivir and port later in the bulletin). Three people were reported Dnieper river basin in Ukraine.