Primary Uses
- Flood control
- Daily operational and maintenance planning
- Water and energy management
Extreme weather events within your watershed can change streamflow volumes rapidly. Without a reliable monitoring system, these events can mean disaster. Assuming persistence of current flow conditions or using observation-based forecasts from nearby locations simply doesn't provide the vital lead-time and accuracy to make the right flood control decisions.
Considering the substantial consequences of uncontrolled flood events, a timely and accurate streamflow forecast is essential for efficient and responsible hydro facility management. 3TIER's customized weather and streamflow prediction models, coupled with a rapid, reliable, web-based forecast delivery system, provide enough advanced warning to manage flood events by allowing time for reservoir drawdown via power generation rather than spill.
In addition to flood prevention, the Short-Range hydrologic forecast system is designed to help reservoir-based hydropower operations improve daily water management, baseload projections, and maintenance planning. By supplying the necessary information to optimize water and energy planning, users can avoid costly and dangerous spills as well as prevent dry-season shortfalls. For run-of-the-river hydropower operations, the forecast also provides forewarning of shifts in streamflow that may disrupt generation, allowing operators time to bring alternative sources online.
3TIER's Short-Range hydrologic forecast projects seven days into the future and updates four times daily, increasing to hourly updates during flooding events. This forecast uses proven, mesoscale atmospheric modeling techniques customized for your watershed and a high-resolution, distributed hydrologic model to simulate land surface water balance to ultimately determine streamflow.
3TIER uses physically based, fully distributed modeling techniques to produce the Short-Range forecast.
The meteorological weather inputs to the forecast are created by using a mesoscale atmospheric NWP (Numerical Weather Prediction) model to downscale global meteorological forecasts from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Forecast System (GFS). Forecasts based on the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) can also be made available.
3TIER's hydrologic model simulates the land surface water balance (including snowpack and soil moisture) and translates the weather forecast inputs into streamflow forecast outputs. The hydrology model is calibrated to hourly or sub-daily streamflow values and typically uses meteorological information from publically available sources, and optional data provided by the client, to help estimate the watershed conditions at the time of the forecast.
Client inputs are desirable, but not required. While local weather data and streamflow data at your location will greatly improve the forecast quality, if customer-sourced observations are not available, 3TIER will attempt to locate publically available data to meet the forecast needs.
If you are unfamiliar with the technical terminology on this page, please visit our Glossary for more information.
