River Forecast Centers
Thirteen NWS River Forecast Centers (RFCs) provide river and flood forecasts and warnings for the protection of lives and property, as well as basic hydrologic forecast information for the nation’s environmental and economic well being.
Map of the 13 NWS River Forecast Centers
The basic functions of the RFCs are to supply:
- Continuous hydrometeorological data assimilation, river basin modeling, and hydrologic forecast preparation
- Technical support and interaction with other NWS offices
- Technical support and interaction with outside water management agencies and users
- Applied research, development, and technological implementation
RFCs provide hydrologic guidance for time scales that vary from hours (flash flood guidance and support to Local Flood Warning Systems), to days (traditional flood forecasts), to weeks (snowmelt forecasts), to months (seasonal water supply).
To go to the webpage for your River Forecast Center, start at http://water.weather.gov/ahps/rfc/rfc.php and click the portion of the map for your area. You’ll then have access to several products (see example below) that range from observed conditions to forecasts of both rivers and precipitation. Some of the displays available on the RFC websites are the same as the local river displays available from the www.weather.gov website, but the RFCs also provide additional data, so it’s worth getting familiar with what’s available on the various sites.
Example of a display of 24-hour accumulated precipitation as recorded by radars, available from the Middle Atlantic RFC (http://www.erh.noaa.gov/marfc/)