Over the past decades, Europe has been affected by several low flow periods which had substantial impacts on the hydrology of the rivers themselves as well as on the society and economy. Low flow periods have a direct impact on the environment, on the inland waterway navigation, on the hydropower production as well as on the sediment management, among others. Similar to floods, low flows are naturally occurring phenomena which can significantly hinder different uses and functions of the rivers and impact the aquatic system and the water quality. Moreover, it is projected that, in the future, climate change might lead to drier summers over the european region and therefore to more frequent and severe low flow periods. The results presented here show that the summer 2018 low flow situation, over the Rhine and Elbe Rivers basin, could have been predicted up to two seasons ahead by using previous months' sea surface temperature, sea level pressure, precipitation, mean air temperature and soil moisture. the lagged relationship between the predictand (e.g. seasonal streamflow) and the climate and oceanic predictors varies between 1 month (e.g. precipitation) up to 6 months (e.g. sea surface temperature). Taking into account that all predictors are available in realtime, the forecast scheme can be used to provide early warnings for the upcoming low flow situations, thus offering the possibility for better management of the water resources. Drought is among the costliest and damaging disasters in the world and is a naturally occurring phenomenon that can affect large land areas and can prevail over extended periods (e.g. several months up to a few years). Over the last two decades, the European region has witnessed a series of long-lasting dry and hot summers (2003, 2010, 2015, and 2018, among others) 1-3. For example, the year 2018 over the central part of Europe, especially Germany, was extraordinarily hot and dry. For Germany, the period April-July 2018 was the warmest since 1,880 and different meteorological stations have reached all-time maximum temperature records. This situation was also exacerbated by a rainfall deficit since February 2018. Overall, in Europe, the monetary losses caused by hydrological and meteorological extremes, over the period 1980-2017, amounted to ~ 453 billion Euro 4. Prolonged dry periods, such as the ones observed in the last decades (e.g. 2003, 2015, and 2018) have emphasized the degree of vulnerability of society to this natural hazard and alerted different governmental agencies and stakeholders regarding the damaging effects drought can have on the economy and society 5,6. Moreover, the IPCC fifth assessment report 7 concludes that the magnitude and frequency of extreme events (e.g. droughts, floods, heatwaves, compound events) will increase globally in the future and large areas of the European continent will be exposed to increased drought risk and possibly to more frequent and long-lasting low flow periods. Prolonged low flow periods may result in several types of issues for the soc...