ABSTRACT: The present paper describes the path walked by the Environmental Agency of Rio de Janeiro (INEA) towards the implementation of a reliable weather forecast system in order to prevent impacts due to extreme events. In 2007 INEA started to acquire new equipment, extending its data collection net and aiming to create a flash flood warning system, through monitoring rain and river levels. It was a huge gain, but the system was only able to anticipate the events a few minutes before it happened, thus the agency decided to increment the forecast system with more robust equipment. In 2012 it started the proceedings to install weather radars. Nowadays, the net operated by INEA encompass 2 S-Band weather radars, installed at the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Macaé, capable of quantifying water in the atmosphere up to 250 km radius, which makes the State of Rio de Janeiro the first one in Brazil to have all its catchments covered by radar technology, including the neighbor States areas, besides 130 water levels and rain monitoring stations. This net provides data to the technical personnel, which interpret the collected information and contact the response teams in the municipal, state and federal levels, in case of need. Taking Quitandinha basin as an example, the mean lead time has significantly increased since the operation of the radar system. It was about 3 hours from 2011 to 2014 and increased to more than 6 hours during the last rainy season.
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