Real Time Flood Forecast and Spatial Decision Support System is abbreviated as RTFF & SDSS Apart from 72 hours early warning, for Chennai, Real Time Flood Forecasting is being developed to strengthen state Emergency Operation centre (SEOC) under CRA

Globally there are various NWP, in RTFF & SDSS Project, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Global Forecast System (GFS) and UK Met and IMD Forecast data are being used. For the NE 2021, RTFF & SDSS will use ECMWF data.

Subsequent to 2015 floods in Chennai and its environs a Flood Meteorologist Office (FMO) was established in 2016 at RMC, Chennai. Every day FMO make Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (QPF) in mm for the next three days based on the numerical weather forecasting model result received from IMD office at Delhi. The model result received from Delhi is modified to suit the basin and sub-basin boundary and come out with figures for quantitative rainfall prediction.

Lake and Reservoir Operation Guidance System is abbreviated as LOGS. The LOGS of the RTFF & SDSS assists the WRD officials to take informed decisions on the flood diversions and flood releases, judiciously averting floods and conserving drinking water.

Chennai and its surrounding areas receive majority of the rainfall occurring during the North East monsoon period (November & December) , where the entire east coast is vulnerable to cyclones. In the past, catastrophic floods occurred in Chennai during the years of 1943, 1976, 1985, 1996, 2005 and 2015.

For first years four reservoirs are included for LOGS i) Poondi ii) Cholavaram iii) Redhills and iv) Chembarmbakkam

The RTFF & SDSS system shall disseminate alerts and advisories to registered users through app designed to inform specific target areas based on early warning priorities. App gives different sound alerts for push notification to varied level of weather alerts. User gets flood risk alerts based on the forecast of their location and can submit the feedback on it to back the system. Integration of RTFF & SDSS with TNSMART is in Progress.

An Early Warning System (EWS) represents the set of capacities needed to generate and disseminate timely and meaningful warning information that enables at-risk individuals, communities and organizations to prepare and act appropriately and in sufficient time to reduce harm or loss. The four components of early warning are i) Risk Knowledge ii) Monitoring and Warning Services iii) Dissemination and Communication iv) Response capability