The paper presents a classification and a review of the updating procedures currently used in real-time flood forecasting modelling. On the basis of results from the WMO project ‘Simulated Real-Time Intercomparion of Hydrological Models’, comprising more than 10 commonly used hydrological models and a variety of different updating procedures, an analysis of the relative importance of updating procedures and hydrological simulation models is provided. In particular, an intercomparison is made beteween two models (NAMS11/MIKE11 and NAMKAL) consisting of the same hydrological model (NAM conceptual rainfall-runoff) but containing different routing modules (linear reservoirs versus hydraulic routing) and different updating procedures (error prediction versus state variable updating based on an extended Kalman filter). A main conclusion is that updating procedures significantly improve the performances of hydrological models for short-range forecasting. Furthermore, there are no clear conclusions regarding which type of updating procedure performs the better. However. intercomparison of the NAMS11 and NAMKAL models indicates that the extended Kalman filter is marginally better than an error prediction model in cases where the basic hydrological model simulation is good. Finally, it is concluded that the basic simulation is very essential for accurate forecasts, and that the better the basic simulations are the better the updating routines in general function. This puts emphasis on the importance of thoroughly calibrating and validating the hydrological simulation models before applying them together with updating routines in operational real-time forecasting.