The Hydrologic Ensemble Prediction Experiment

The Hydrologic Ensemble Prediction Experiment was established in March, 2004, at a workshop hosted by the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF). The original goal was to bring the international hydrological and meteorological communities together to demonstrate how to produce reliable hydrological ensemble forecasts that can be used with confidence by the emergency management and water resources sectors to make decisions that have important consequences for the economy, for public health and safety. The strategy to meet this goal includes involving the user community in every aspect of the project.

Since its beginning, HEPEX has organized: about a dozen international workshops; many test-bed projects; special sessions at scientific meetings (including AMS, AGU and EGU); and, special issues of peer-reviewed scientific journals where workshop results have been published. Today, the HEPEX mission is to demonstrate the added value of hydrological ensemble predictions (HEPS) for emergency management and water resources sectors to make decisions that have important consequences for economy, public health, safety, and the environment. HEPEX is now organised around six major themes: 1. Input and pre-processing (lead ECMWF) 2. Ensemble techniques (lead ECMWF) 3. Data assimilation (lead NWS) 4. Post-processing (lead NWS) 5. Verification (lead JRC) 6. Communication and use in decision making (lead JRC)

This poster will present an overview of recent and planned HEPEX activities. This will be done with special emphasis on how HEPEX participants are helping advance the theme of this meeting to “take predictions to the next level”