Computer model forecast flooding in Calgary 10 days before deluge

Flooded areas of Stampede Park are pictured on June 21, 2013. Using a supercomputer, researchers in England could see the Bow River was almost certain to surge in late June.
Photograph by: Gavin Young, Calgary Herald

Computer model forecast flooding in Calgary 10 days before deluge

E.U. researchers predicted surge of Bow River

By Matt McClure, Calgary Herald February 10, 2014

Ten days before Calgary was inundated last summer, supercomputers half a world away were spitting out predictions that showed the city would soon be flooded.

Using state-of-the-art weather forecasts that can see rain coming weeks before clouds appear on the horizon and a mathematical model that calculates how precipitation runs off anywhere in the world, Lorenzo Alfieri and his team of researchers in Reading, England, could see that the Bow River was almost certain to surge in late June to levels higher than those seen during the disastrous 2005 floods.

Read article here: http://bit.ly/M5gog5