Hopson is a hydrometeorologist who specializes in daily to seasonal forecasts of river discharges. He works on a pioneering flood forecasting program, first applied for Bangladesh, that delivers 1- to 10-day forecasts to residents living along major rivers, alerting them when river levels are likely to rise dangerously. The system, which uses a combination of weather forecast models, satellite observations, river gauges, and new hydrologic modeling techniques, is being applied to other countries. Hopson also works on verifying and, when necessary, calibrating the output from computer weather models.
