The Flood Forecasting Centre (FFC) will continue the Rapid Flood Guidance (RFG) service for three further years-covering 2026, 2027 and 2028-following new funding from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The commitment ensures responders in England and Wales retain short‑notice guidance on days of heightened surface water flood risk alongside the daily Flood Guidance Statement (FGS).
For 2026, the FFC has provisionally scheduled the service from 6 May to mid‑October. The seasonal operating model, already familiar to users, provides a clear horizon for local authority and responder organisations to plan duty rotas, training and exercising ahead of the peak risk period.
RFG supplements the FGS by highlighting days with an elevated likelihood of rapid surface water flooding. On those days an advisory badge appears on the FGS front page, and the FFC issues concise updates focused on timing, location and confidence to support tactical decision‑making by emergency planners and operational leads.
Performance data from the 2025 season, which ran from 2 June to 17 October, show 2,450 responders registered for the service, up from 1,700 in 2024. The RFG badge appeared on the FGS on 17 days, with updates issued on 10 of those days. In total, 19 updates were published and downloaded more than 6,200 times, indicating broad engagement across the responder community.
User feedback from the 2024 trial informed improvements during 2025. Subscriptions could be targeted by local authority area rather than broad regions, thresholds for issuing updates were refined to reduce alerts where impacts were minimal, and a redesigned production system enabled faster publication to match short‑fuse weather developments.
Existing users registered in 2025 will remain on the distribution list for 2026 and will receive operational details ahead of the season. Preferences-such as geography and delivery by email or optional text message-can be managed through the Flood Guidance Statement account. For those not yet enrolled, sign‑up is open, and RFG content can also be viewed without notifications via the Met Office’s Hazard Manager.
RFG sits within the Surface Water Flood Forecasting Improvement Project (SWFFIP), a Spending Review 2021 initiative funded by Defra and the Environment Agency and delivered by the Met Office and the Environment Agency through the FFC. SWFFIP is due to complete in March 2026 and contributes to delivery of Defra’s Surface Water Management Action Plan published in July 2018.
According to the FFC’s Head of Centre, Russell Turner, the extension provides continuity following the 2024 trial and the move to operational service in 2025. The additional funding allows the Centre to continue issuing timely, tailored guidance on days of heightened risk to support responder decision‑making and public safety.
For Local Resilience Forums and councils, the confirmation to 2028 secures a multi‑year planning window to embed RFG into severe weather plans, duty systems and incident workflows. Local authority‑level targeting and revised thresholds are intended to reduce alert fatigue while maintaining early situational awareness for short‑notice rainfall events.
Ahead of the provisional start on 6 May 2026, organisations should verify FGS account access, review distribution lists and ensure staff are confident in interpreting RFG alongside local telemetry and forecasting inputs. Final operational details will be circulated by the FFC to all registered users before the season begins.