Alberta Environment

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• Alberta Environments
• River Forecast Centre
• Presentation to the UNSTABLE Workshop
• Edmonton, Alberta
• April 18, 2007
• Ray Keller Team Leader, Flow Forecasting
• Water Management Operations

North Saskatchewan River at Edmonton June 2005
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What River Forecasting Does

• Real-time monitoring and reporting
• Water Management
• Infrastructure Management
• Water Supply Forecasting
• Flood Forecasting

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1. What do we monitor and report?
Real-time data

• Stream levels and flows
• Lake and reservoir levels
• Precipitation
• Snowpack
• Temperature, wind, humidity
• Water quality

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Data Networks

• Over 350 Hydrometric Stations (Water
  Levels/Flows)

• Over 420 Meteorologic Stations
• (AENV, EC, AAFRD, TransAlta, SRD)

• 117 Snow Course Locations
• 15 Automated Snow Pillows

Most stations (except snow courses) report hourly
data
Currently takes two man days per day to QA/QC
real-time data
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Real-time Hydrometric Stations

• Over 350 currently
• Stream, lake, reservoir levels
• Satellite/phone links

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Real-time Meteorological Stations
218 Federal and Provincial
Hourly Data

• Precipitation
• Temperature
• Relative humidity
• Wind speed

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Forestry Meteorological Stations

• 190 stations
• Mostly in north
• Most report 2x-daily
• Some report 1x-daily

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Snow Course Sites
71 Plains
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Snow Pillows

• 13 Mountain Sites
• (new site at South Esk)
• 3 Plains Area Sites
• (new site in Swan Hills)

USES

• Snow-on-ground
• Snow / Rain indicators
• Melt rates

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How can UNSTABLE help?

• Variety of Flood Conditions
• Snowmelt
• Plains - March - April
• Only smaller streams affected (Paddle, Battle,
  Vermilion, etc)
• Ice jams
• Mountains - May - July
• No flooding of major rivers by mountain
  snowmelt alone
• Rainfall
• Affects all rivers in Alberta
• Flooding along major rivers is caused by heavy
  rainfall or heavy rainfall during mountain
  snowmelt

Oldman River at Lethbridge June 2005
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Contributions to UNSTABLE

• Current meteorological sites in area
• Proposed new sites for 2008 (approx. location)

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Opportunities

• Alberta Environment will share all data in area
• Opportunity to put additional sensors at existing
  locations if required
• Very interested in results of study
• AENV is heavily reliant on accurate weather
  forecasting for their functions

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Questions?
Near Barrhead March 2007