States of emergency have been declared in parts of Bosnia and Serbia after the heaviest rain and worst floods since records began 120 years ago.

www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27439139

www.weather.com/safety/floods/bosnia-serbia-flooding-20140515

Observational data suggests the critical nature of this event:

TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission), despite the known tendency to underestimation for higher latitude areas (rain.atmos.colostate.edu/research/pubs/wang_etal09.pdf), still suggests QPE values over 24h larger than 50-60 mm for areas 25x25 km^2

see imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/557x308q90/r/841/8za8.png

On the citizen scientist side, a personal weather station (PWS) located in Belgrade (Beograd-Karaburma)

www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-st...14/e20140515/mcustom

provides a 24h (14 may 2014 from 00UTC to 2359 YTC) cumulated rainfall depth equal to roughly 100 mm

see here

www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-st...14/e20140515/mcustom

I am sure that our RHMSS Colleagues can provide more insight in this event, whenever the operational duties for the post event phase will allow it.

By the way we already agreed to have this a case for our Cb-Tram for Citizen scientists.

Antonio

Quoting the reliefweb.int/disaster/ff-2014-000059-srb page:

"Continuous rainfall starting on 13 May 2014 caused severe flooding in Serbia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, blocking roads, interrupting electricity and water supply. Several bridges were destroyed and some of villages have been cut off. The evacuation of the people trapped by the floods is ongoing. Weather conditions for the next two days predict continued rainfall. The EU Civil Protection Mechanism has been activated. High capacity water pumps and expert teams which operate them are urgently needed in Serbia, while Bosnia and Herzegovina has called for helicopters and motor boats to evacuate people and to transport water, medicines and food. (ECHO, 16 May 2014)

In mid-April, intense rainfalls followed with moderate snowfalls had affected the western, eastern and southern parts of Serbia (IFRC, 25 Apr 2014). Flooding was also reported in Romania and Bulgaria (ECHO, 24 Apr 2014)."

16 May 2014: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina – Severe weather/Floods Map

reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/...6_EEurope_Floods.pdf

Just an example of the impacts

news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/74898000/...898561_landslide.jpg

news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/74930000/...0939_022274649-1.jpg

Antonio

Thank you Antonio for interesting background information to this ongoing crisis!

Indeed, once the operational duties allow, it would be interesting to hear if there are any lessons that can be learned! If I understood correctly there was not much of an advance warning (i.e. despite almost continuous rains, the actual flooding was mainly triggered by an extreme event within a 24 hour time window)?

About the operational duties i leave the floor to RHMSS Colleagues, however it is interesting to see

Rapid Response Mapping of the 2014 Flooding in Bosnia and Serbia

floodobservatory.colorado.edu/RapidRespo...4139/2014Bosnia.html

From Joint Research Center

floods.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ongoing-floods.html#

Green Flood alert in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 22/06/2010 00:00 UTC to 26/06/2010 00:00 UTC

www.gdacs.org/resources.aspx?eventid=366...odeid=1&eventtype=FL

Antonio

Detailed report of this event will be on this forum very soon, Vladimir is working on it.
I just want to answer and emphasize that official timely warnings were issued starting one week before the event.

Dear colleagues,
See attachment file to see something about flooding in Serbia.
Meteorological and hydrological analyses are in progress.
Best regards,
Vladimir

[Administrator: for technical reasons the attachment was moved and can be found through this link]