Kathmandu. The Centre for Hydrology and Water Resources Research has decided to predict flash floods two days in advance.

Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Biraj Bhakta Shrestha and Home Minister Sudhan Gurung visited the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology on Tuesday and directed them to strengthen the preparedness and early warning system.

Dr. Rajan Bhattarai, spokesperson of the Center for Hydrology and Water Resources Research. According to Dr. Rajan Bhattarai, the flood forecasting period of major rivers has been extended from 3 days to 5 days and from 1 day (24 hours) to 2 days (48 hours) in small rivers across Nepal, further improving the hydrology and flood forecasting services.

According to Bhattarai, the Centre’s own Nepal-centric flood forecasting model and ECMWF’s comprehensive forecasting system have been integrated with other models of global and regional hydrological forecasting.

Similarly, the preparation of the 2-day flash flood risk forecast comprehensively analyzes the South Asia-Flash Flood Analysis System, soil moisture, current river water surface and flow, rainfall forecast, watershed status and other important hydrological indicators.

This is expected to provide more time for preparedness, alertness, risk mitigation and necessary response by getting advance information about the risk of potential floods and flash floods.

Spokesperson Bhattarai said that the Centre for Hydrology and Water Resources Research would gradually strengthen its location-specific accuracy, time-wise accuracy, impact-based forecasting, local risk identification and early warning system in the coming days.