NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – After the Waverly floods that killed 20 people, Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher Dr. Shih-Chieh Kao and his team began developing a new model to better predict flooding.
“If we have a forecast, we can predict the corresponding floods more quickly and do more in this regard,” Kao said.
But before they looked forward, they had to look back. We asked Kao what he thought went wrong three years ago.
“The precipitation forecast. That’s the part that didn’t go quite right. The precipitation model did predict that there would be a lot of precipitation in this region, so the precipitation was somewhere nearby, but it kind of shifted nearby,” Kao said.
That small change changed everything, hopefully the new model would prevent that from happening again.
“I think everyone was surprised, and from a very different perspective. And hopefully in the future, when we have better predictive capabilities, it will be less surprising,” Kao said.
The key, he said, is to be able to predict flood areas more quickly so people have more time to issue warnings, deploy emergency resources and evacuate if necessary.
“The goal is to figure out how we can better predict and forecast events like this to avoid loss of life or property,” Kao said.
He says this work is becoming even more important as climate change leads to more flooding.
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