Drop the name "Alf" into conversation around Manitoba and many people won't conjure up the little brown alien who starred in the hit NBC television show. Rather, they picture a soft-spoken 68-year-old former math teacher who's been saving the province from the maw of catastrophe for 40 years.
As the Red River climbs river gauges in Fargo, ND, Alf Warkentin, Manitoba's oracle of inundation, marks the beginning of his final flood season. He'll be replaced by a younger man and cutting-edge computer models, but the vacancy may prove too big for one man and a few micro-chips to replace.
"He's like a walking library," said Phillip Mutulu, the protégé who will take over Mr. Warkentin's position as senior hydrologic forecaster this summer. "The encouraging thing is we have a team, so it's not like I'll be carrying the burden myself."
Mr. Warkentin grew up among the flood-prone farmlands south of Winnipeg and developed an early fascination with the peculiar variables of a Prairie deluge.
"Prairie hydrology is the most difficult to forecast," he said after Thursday after a flood update, one of countless media appearances over the years that have raised him to guru status. "It's way worse than Ontario or most other places."
He studied math and physics at the University of Manitoba, taught high school for a year, tried his hand as a meteorologist and, in 1970, found his calling in the province's water conservation department.
Since then, he's developed an instinctive sense for flow rates, run-off coefficients, soil saturation, ice jams and the myriad other factors that go into flood prediction - as well as tireless patience for the odd reporter who wouldn't know a flood from a mud-puddle.
But he doesn't go on feel alone. Mr. Warkentin relies on an array of outdated computer modelling and inadequate data-collection systems to inform his opinions.
His team uses something called the Muskingam Method to map the progressive shape of floods. "It's not the greatest," he admits. "It's not too bad for flows, but it doesn't give you the levels."
It will be up to his predecessor to fully introduce the Mike Flood model, which is so complex it calculates the effect of the smallest road-bed or railway on a flood's path.
"We've been using a version of it, but it's not working too well," he said, adding that some modern computer models can be a hindrance because they take up to a day to compute.
And that's the easy part. Mr. Warkentin's forecast become impossibly complex when he overlays those maps of a flood's potential path upon hydrologic models, which look at run-off, snow melt, soil penetration and dozens of other features in calculating the total volume of water on the ground.
Impressive as the computer models may be, Mr. Warkentin is hesitant to place absolute trust in them.
"There are a lot of models out there, but it's difficult to find one that works well in an operational mode," he said. "But I think Phillip and his team will solve that problem within a couple years."
However old-fashioned his methods, they've proved successful over the years. His predictions have led to the fortification of towns, homes and businesses against rising waters over the years. The 2009 flood, the second-highest along the Red River since 1852, resulted in minimal damage.
As much as he clearly revels in the mathematical details of forecasting, it's clear Mr. Warkentin won't miss some aspects of the job. Last year, a stew of swollen streams, thick ice and successive snow storms synchronized to create one of the most difficult forecasting seasons of his long career. When one of his forecasts was off by 0.6 metres, land owners squawked.
"Last year was a very unusual year," he said. "Really, the difference was only about two feet. It wasn't as if there was a huge error where we were off by five feet or something."
And the hours can be a grind. "Alf is 24/7 during the flood season," said Infrastructure and Transportation Minister Steve Ashton, who maintains a steadfast confidence in his senior forecaster.
"I'm an economist by background and I'm a lot more confident in the forecasting skills here," said Mr. Ashton, staring at Mr. Warkentin, "than any prediction of growth, or lack of it, in the economy."
Even as he hands his measuring stick to the hydrologist he calls "the man of the future," Mr. Warkentin suspects his flood work won't be over when he retires this summer.
"Yes, this should be my last flood, I guess, unless they want me to come back and help out. We'll see."