Big Muddy Speaker Series presents:

For those of us that live by and work on the Missouri River, waiting for the latest river predictions from the National Weather Service can become an obsession. There is a collective Facebook gasp when projection graphs turn red and purple. Eventually the conversation turns to "How do they do this?"

The work of predicting river level responses to rain events involves predictions on how much rain will fall over large areas and where, how soil moisture and vegetative growth will effect runoff, the behavior of different tributaries in the basin and changes in the watershed since the previous similar flood event. The variables are mind boggling, and it can seem like a mixture of quantum physics and the dark arts.

Kevin Low, the Service Coordination Hydrologist for the NWS Missouri River Basin Forecast Center will join us to dig deep into the history of NWS' work on weather predictions, explain the processes and models they use to generate river forecasts and weather products and use recent flood events to explain how and why these models can succeed and fail.

Kevin will also look into the future at both the long-term forecast for 2016 and the work of his colleagues into what climate change predictions could mean for Missouri River behavior.

Kevin Low is the Service Coordination Hydrologist for the National Weather Service Missouri River Basin Forecast Center in Pleasant Hill, MO. He is the liaison between his office, other NOAA offices, other Federal agencies, and State agencies within the Missouri River basin as well as the outreach person for the general public.

Kevin Low, Missouri River Basin Forecast Center hydrologist for the National Weather Service, uses an enviroscape model to explain stormwater runoff to students in Kansas City.
photo by Steve Schnarr