Twitter feeds forecast real time water, weather and flood for Texas

The USGS Texas Water Dashboard developed by USGS is a online service that provides critical real time water information, weather and flood for Texas at your fingertips on a desktop, smartphone or other mobile device. The USGS uses Twitter to craete twitter feeds and to map the information on weather and water.

With the help of Twitter, USGS TX FloodWatch (@USGS_TexasFlood) and USGS TX RainWatch (@USGS_TexasRain) were developed to distribute water level and precipitation data: . The FloodWatch feed automatically sends out tweets anytime one of about 300 selected USGS streamgages throughout the state rises above the NWS-defined flood level, and delivers information within minutes. The RainWatch feed tweets when rainfall exceeds a rate of 0.4 inches per hour.

“The Texas Water Dashboard provides a user-friendly ‘one-stop’ picture that is of extreme use to water resource managers, with the simplicity to be used by the general public,” said Mark Null, National Weather Service Hydrologist-In-Charge, West Gulf Coast River Forecast Center.