NWS Flood Outlook Survey

Flood Outlook Now Available

Effective November 1, 2001, the National Weather Service (NWS) will regularly issue a new five day flood outlook that identifies areas at risk of significant river flooding. This product is intended to alert emergency managers and others that a potential for river flooding exists. Official Flood Warnings and Forecasts will continue to be issued by NWS Weather Forecast Offices.

Significant flooding is defined as flooding that adversely affects roads, residential, commercial, industrial and/or agricultural areas and may require the evacuation of people and/or livestock. This new outlook will focus on flooding along rivers and does not address the potential for flash flooding.

All 13 River Forecast Centers covering the lower 48 states and Alaska will provide via Internet five day flood outlooks for their areas of responsibility. Using the River Forecast Centers' outlooks, an additional map showing flood potential for the contiguous 48 states will be assembled by the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center of NWS' National Centers for Environmental Prediction. The national mosaic will be made available through NOAA Port, the Emergency Managers Weather Information Network, the Family of Services and the Internet.

The Web-based national mosaic provides links to the individual River Forecast Center outlooks. In turn, the River Forecast Center Web pages provide links to NWS Weather Forecast Offices which provide specific river forecasts and warnings. Web addresses for these outlook products are:

Issuing Office	Web Address
NWS' Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (national mosaic)	http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/nationalfloodoutlook
River Forecast Center
Northeast	http://www.nws.noaa.gov/er/nerfc/fop
Middle Atlantic	http://marfchp1.met.psu.edu/fop
Southeast	http://www.srh.noaa.gov/serfc/fop
Ohio Basin	http://www.nws.noaa.gov/er/ohrfc/fop.htm
North-Central	http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ncrfc/flood_outlooks/fop.html
Missouri Basin	http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mbrfc/fop.html
Arkansas-Red	http://www.srh.noaa.gov/abrfc/fop/abrfcfop.html
Lower Mississippi	http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lmrfc/fop/
West Gulf	http://www.srh.noaa.gov/wgrfc/fop/wgrfcfop.html
Colorado Basin	http://www.cbrfc.noaa.gov/fop/fop.cgi
California-Nevada	http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/cnrfc/fop.htm
Northwest	http://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/fop.html
Alaska-Pacific	http://aprfc.arh.noaa.gov/maps/fop.html

Additional information:

Public Information Statement	Statement providing information on the roll out of the Flood Outlook product.
Questions and Answers	Answers to selected questions about the Flood Outlook product.
Survey	Survey used to solicit feedback from potential users. While initial design decisions have been made, we continue to solicit input from users on changes that may make the product more useful to them.
Survey Results	Summary of survey responses.
Implementation Plan	Plan approved by the Director of the National Weather Service on June 26, 2001. (requires Adobe Acrobat reader)

Frank Richards
(301) 713-1630x128
Francis.Richards@noaa.gov