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?