This paper presents a study on short-term ensemble flood forecasting specifically for small dam catchments in Japan. Numerical ensemble simulations of rainfall from the Japan Meteorological Agency nonhydrostatic model (JMA-NHM) are used as the input data to a rainfall–runoff model for predicting river discharge into a dam. The ensemble weather simulations use a conventional 10 km and a high-resolution 2 km spatial resolutions. A distributed rainfall–runoff model is constructed for the Kasahori dam catchment (approx. 70 km2) and applied with the ensemble rainfalls.