Hydrometeorological Drought Forecasts : Lessons Learned from ANYWHERE and Next Steps to Improve Drought Management

Summary

ANYWHERE Drought early warning system (ADEWS) is a part of the multi-hazard EWS that addresses all major weather-related natural hazards in Europe, such as floods, flash floods, landslides, storm surges, heatwaves and air quality, wildfires, convective storms, and heavy snowfall. This chapter starts with a method for forecasting hydrometeorological droughts, including the forecast data and hydrological model used in the ADEWS, approaches to derive droughts from hydrometeorological forecasted time series, and the drought forecast algorithms. It then continues with examples of meteorological and hydrological drought forecasts derived from the ADEWS for 2018 drought in Europe. The chapter discusses the origin of seasonal hydrometeorological drought forecast skill, which is higher than that of the forecasted hydrometeorological time series. The importance of catchment memory in shaping the skill of hydrological drought forecasts is presented. Finally, an outlook and future improvements of hydrometeorological drought forecasting is given.