NOAA has expanded experimental flood inundation mapping (FIM) services from 10% to 30% of the US population.
NOAA’s flood inundation mapping services
FIM provides near-real-time, high-resolution, street-level visualizations of flood waters and helps forecasters issue more accurate and timely flood watches and warnings. FIM also estimates where impacts may occur due to inundation of land areas as analyzed or predicted by the National Water Model and River Forecast Center streamflow simulations.
“Over the past year, FIM has been a game-changer in providing actionable and real-time information to emergency and water resource managers for flood impacts,” said David Vallee, director of service innovation and partnerships at NOAA’s National Water Center. “FIM expanding to 30% will allow us to provide more widespread and expansive impact-based decision support services to our core partners in flood-prone and vulnerable parts of the nation.”
In 2025, NWS will expand FIM services to 60% of the US population. In 2026, FIM will be fully deployed nationwide for 3.4 million river miles covered by National Water Model forecasts. NOAA’s experimental FIM and forecasting services are funded in part by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Increasing flood information access
FIM services now cover the Mid-Atlantic, the eastern Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, Lower Mississippi Valley, the central Gulf Coast region, the Pacific Northwest with all of Washington and parts of Oregon, and Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. This includes the populated, metropolitan areas of Buffalo, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, Philadelphia, San Juan, Seattle, St Louis and Washington DC. NOAA launched FIM in autumn 2023, covering 10% of the country’s population in portions of Louisiana, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.
FIM maps are available on the new National Water Prediction Service website and on a few Geographic Information System (GIS) applications. FIM Services for the lower 48 states include four map options – a National Water Model derived latest analysis, a five-day forecast derived from the National Water Model, a five-day forecast derived from NWS River Forecast Center streamflow predictions and a static categorical FIM (CatFIM) for selected NWS River forecast locations within the FIM domain.
FIM services for Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands will consist of a National Water Model derived latest analysis FIM and a 48-hour forecast based on National Water Model streamflow predictions.
In related news, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act recently awarded US$100m in funding to General Dynamics Information Technology for NOAA’s newest high-performance computer (HPC) system, called Rhea. Rhea will be used to advance research on weather, climate, ocean and ecosystem prediction. Click here to read the full story