Experimental Satellite Flood Inundation Imagery for
Flood Forecasting at the North Central River Forecast Center (278)
Michael DeWeese, National
Weather Service, Chanhassen, MN
Andrew Mangham, National
Weather Service
Sanmei Li, George Mason
University
Abstract:
Flooding is one of the most
costly and deadly natural disasters in the United States, resulting in more
fatalities than any other disaster type. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey alone caused
catastrophic record flooding resulting in 125 billion dollars of estimated damages.
The National Weather Service River Forecast Centers are charged with providing
river forecast information for the nation, from flooding to drought. Beginning
in 2014, the North Central River Forecast Center has utilized satellite
information from the experimental VIIRS Flood Inundation products as part of
the JPSS Proving Ground and Risk Reduction Program to monitor flooding over
large areas. Results have proven this information to be reliable, providing a
valuable new information source that can be used for flood detection and
forecasting. This data is especially useful in remote regions where no other
observed data source is available. Examples are provided to demonstrate the
operational contributions of this product in cold region snowmelt and ice jam
flooding scenarios, as well as major flooding from rainfall in the upper
Mississippi River basin. In addition, a new joint geostationary-JPSS flood
product combined from Suomi-NPP/VIIRS and GOES-16/ABI imagery, scheduled to be
available in July 2018, will provide more frequent images with expanded
coverage under cloudy conditions. Prototypes are presented contrasting the new
composite imagery to the single source legacy imagery currently available.