The maximum potential warning time (TWP) is defined as the time from the beginning of the storm event (or its anticipation) to the time that the stream reaches flood stage. The flood recognition and reaction time, TR, includes the time required to observe or measure developing conditions. TR is the sum of the times for several component tasks: Tobs, the time needed to acquire the necessary observational data; Tdata, the time required to analyze the storm data and determine (recognize) that a flood is likely to occur; Tfp, the time to prepare a forecast; and the time required to disseminate the flood warning, Tdis. The flood recognition and reaction time can be expressed as