This is a stupid question mostly because I don’t know where to ask it. Also it seems like an obvious thing but I’ve never read any news mentioning ……
I was just reading an article going over recent flooding catastrophes and one thing that stood out was a dam adding to the high water by having to release water while the flooding was still happening.
But can’t dam operators see a storm forecast and start drinking, er draining, ahead of time? It’s seems like you could make a big difference in controlling flooding with just a day or two pregaming. That can’t be profound, so why does it never seem to be mentioned? It could be a significant factor on many floods, a critical use for NWS data, forecasts, warnings, so where are the news mentions?
Flood control is very close to my area of research. My research involves effect of dams on river water and I don’t get to talk about it often, so it was fun. But I haven’t actually worked on a dam control or made policies, so my work is more theoretical what ifs.