Forecasting River Ice Breakup and Ice Jam Flooding

Mechanical breakup of river ice cover and associated ice jam flooding is a major concern for riverine communities in cold regions. The ability to forecast breakup ice jams is essential for river ice management. Numerous studies on forecasting breakup ice jams have been conducted. This study reviews existing breakup forecasting methods, including data-driven and machine learning techniques, and discusses their shortcomings and possible improvements in selecting input parameters. Since the weather during breakup time often changes rapidly, forecasting in a Nowcasting mode to assess the risk of mechanical breakup and ice jam flooding is necessary to issue flood warnings and support emergency operations. A physically based method for rapidly forecasting ice cover breakup and ice jam flooding is developed, which also provides information to improve existing forecasting methods.