Separate continental outlook from local warning
The Copernicus European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) provides a pan-European flood forecasting and monitoring perspective. It helps put river conditions across borders in context. A forecast is not an observation that every highlighted area has flooded, and a continental product is not the same as a national authority's warning for an address. Always inspect the forecast issue time, lead time, model and legend.
Country-level services issue their own warnings and may cover different flood types. For example, the UK's Environment Agency service covers England, not all of Europe or even all of the UK. Our UK guide identifies the separate Welsh and Scottish services. Elsewhere, use the responsible national or regional hydrometeorological authority rather than assuming an England-only service applies.
What a global event marker can tell you
The PocketWorld flood overview presents provider-labelled global event records. A marker can draw attention to a reported event, but it need not cover every river, street or warning zone. The underlying provider may revise an event after local warnings have changed. Conversely, a fresh official warning may not yet appear as a global event. An empty map region should never be interpreted as no flood risk.
Europe spans many countries, catchments and time zones. A river flood can cross borders while the public instructions change at each jurisdiction. Compare valid times in one time zone and distinguish event observation, model forecast and warning publication. Different colours on two maps do not have a shared severity scale unless their legends and methods say so.
How to check one locality
Start with the national or regional authority responsible for the place, then read its current warning text and affected area. Use EFAS to understand the broader cross-border forecast context and PocketWorld for provider-linked event context. Keep the authority, product name, issue time and forecast time attached to any screenshot you share. If one layer is stale or its provenance is missing, state that limitation rather than inferring a precise flood boundary.
Neither EFAS nor PocketWorld replaces local emergency instructions for a street, train journey or property. Flood impacts can change faster than a global feed updates. The PocketWorld methodology explains retained snapshots; for action, follow the responsible local agency and emergency services.
For a cross-border river, the forecast location matters as much as the country name. Upstream and downstream levels can peak at different times, and separate agencies may use different thresholds. The European Environment Agency's EFAS overview describes its cross-border preparatory role. Check the gauge or catchment named by each product before presenting two coloured areas as a contradiction.
Data sources
References are linked beside the explanations above. This evergreen guide does not report current incidents.