Our observations of water heights and velocities go back to about 1910, but first nations have memories about floods that go back centuries. It's an extremely valuable body of information. They've also learned how to understand aspects of weather through their traditions that give them some predictive powers, particularly amongst the elders in their communities. Bringing this information in does certainly help with the forecast for their communities, but also I think it could help with forecasts for other communities so that we really have every body of knowledge brought forward for this problem.
