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Signature of the MoU between EUMETNET & WMO

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The WMO SG, Celeste Saulo, and the EUMETNET Executive Director, Klemen Bergant, have signed the MoU between EUMETNET and WMO.

The aim of this MoU is to enhance collaboration in matters of mutual interest, such as meterological observation systems and data infrastructure, weather and climate services, the promotion and implementation of early warning systems, reserach and development, education and training, etc.

WMO activities such as the WMO Information System (WIS), the WMO Integrated Global Observation System (WIGOS) and joint initiatives such as the WMO-IATA Collaborative AMDAR Programme (WICAP), the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) and several others provide a general framework for cooperation.

The signature of this agreement means that the excellent cooperation between WMO and EUMETNET will continue and be enhanced over the next five years.

New Chair and Vice-Chair of EUMETNET Assembly

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EUMETNET’s Spring Assembly meeting, held in Reykjavik,  was chaired for the first time by Dr Roar Skålin, Director of the Norwegian Meteorological Service, MET Norway, who has been elected as the new Chair of EUMETNET’s Assembly of Members.

Dr Skålin replaces Dr Peter Binder from MeteoSwiss, who stepped down as Chair following his retirement.

Dr Martin Benko from the Slovakian Meterological Service, SHMU, was elected as Vice-Chair.

Both Dr Skålin and Dr Benko will serve initial two-year terms.

RODEO Project Launch

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RODEO Project Launch – making meteorological high-value datasets available for all

 

The Provision of Open Access to Public Meteorological Data and Development of Shared Federated Data Infrastructure for the Development of Information Products and Services (RODEO) Project has now been officially launched.

 

In 2019, the European Commission issued a revised directive on open data (1024/2019/EU) which aims to harmonize and enhance regulation related to the opening of public sector data reserves. The Implementing Regulation of the Directive defines High Value Datasets (HVD), (EU) 2023/138, and the technical requirements for each of the data categories. One of which concerns meteorological data.

The RODEO project responds to the requirements of the HVD Implementing Regulation by making meteorological High Value Datasets easily available and bringing new data to businesses, public administrations and citizens.

The regulation defines requirements for surface weather observations, climate time series, warnings, weather radar data, and Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) data. Furthermore, the regulation specifies they shall be available under an open license, in a machine-readable format using Application Programming Interfaces (API) and bulk downloadable. These datasets will be free of charge.

The project is co-funded by the Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL) and by the network of 31 European National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (EUMETNET). The project partners consist of 11 European meteorological institutions (listed below), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and EUMETNET..

The project strengthens the capacity of the European meteorological data providers to comply with the HVD Implementing Regulation by:

  • Developing a user interface
  • Developing APIs for accessing weather observation data, climate data, weather radar data, warnings, and AI datasets
  • Developing a data catalogue for making data discoverable
  • Engaging with the data owners and user communities
  • Supporting the deployment of national data portals and APIs
  • Making HVDs available from the project partners

During the three-year RODEO project, the project partners will design and implement harmonised technical solutions supporting the European meteorological institutions to meet the HVD requirements. This will increase the usability of public sector meteorological data and boost entrepreneurship, improve and develop digital products and services and support climate research.

Most importantly, better data availability leads to better weather warnings, forecasts, and services to the public and weather-critical industries, and contributes to the safe and efficient functioning of society with multiple benefits across the European economy, industry, and society.

 

 

The Project Partners are:

Ilmatieteen laitos, Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI)

Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut, Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI)

European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)

Orszagos Meteorologiai Szolgalat, Hungarian Meteorological Service (OMSZ)

Bundesanstalt für Geologie, Geophysik, Klimatologie und Meteorologie, GeoSphere Austria

Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Institutt, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI)

Latvijas Vides, Geologijas un Meteorologijas Centrs Sia, Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Centre (LVGMC)

EUMETNET Groupement D’Interet Economique, EUMETNET

Meteorologisk Institutt, Norwegian Meteorological Institute (Met Norway)

Administratia Nationala De Meteorologie R.A., National Administration of Meteorology of Romania (ANM)

Vedurstofa Islands, Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO)

Instytut Meteorologii i Gospodarki Wodnej – Państwowy Instytut Badawczy, Institute of Meteorology and Water Management – National Research Institute of Poland (IMGW-PIB)

Institut Royal Meteorologique de Belgique, NSTITUT ROYAL METEOROLOGIQUE DE Belgique, Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium (IRM)

 

 

44th EWGLAM & 29th SRNWP workshop

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The 44th European Working Group on Limited-Area Modelling (EWGLAM) Meeting and the 29th Short Range NWP (SRNWP) Meeting were successfully organized between 26-29 September in Brussels, Belgium, with around 80 in-situ and 60 online participants and several invited speakers. The special topic this year was “Opportunities and challenges in hectometric NWP”. It was concluded that many hectometric NWP applications nowadays are focusing on urban environment. The most important challenges related to these models are adequate external parameters (e.g. land use database on the order of 10 m) and suitable physical parameterizations (e.g. 3D turbulence). A special session was also organized about the future evolution of High Performance Computing.

Presentations are available at the meeting’s website: http://srnwp.met.hu/Annual_Meetings/2022/index.html

EUMETNET convection-permitting ensemble database hosted at ECMWF

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An archive of convection-permitting limited-area model ensembles of European countries has been established at ECMWF, as part of the cooperation within the SRNWP–EPS (Short-Range Numerical Weather Prediction – Ensemble Prediction System) project of EUMETNET…

For further information click on the link below:

https://www.ecmwf.int/en/newsletter/166/news/eumetnet-convection-permitting-ensemble-database-hosted-ecmwf

 

Saharan dust outbreak as observed by the E-PROFILE network

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Click on the image to see the animation showing the dust plume over Europe

 

 

Over the weekend a strong outbreak of Saharan dust affected large regions of Europe and lead to number of photos as seen in Figure 1 with red-coloured skies and dramatically decreased visibility. Such conditions were observed by many ALC’s (Automatic lidars and ceilometers) in the E-PROFILE network, as illustrated in Figure 2. The origin of the air is clearly Saharian as indicated by the back-trajectories in Figure 3.

Dense 24/7 networks such as E-PROFILE are an ideal tool to monitor the horizontal, vertical and temporal distribution of aerosols and prove extremely useful to assess the situation in such events. This is illustrated by Figures 4-6 which indicate how the dust plume moved over Europe. It was located over Spain on 05 February before gradually moving towards the North and East during 06 and 07 February. This is a showcase for Saharan dust mixed into the boundary layer, but such a monitoring is possible for any aerosol type at any tropospheric altitude.

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Fig.1 Strong limitation in visibility and atmosphere in reddish colours in the Swiss prealps. Picture taken by Alexander Haefele in the afternoon of 06 February 2021.

 

 

 

 

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Fig.2 Attenuated back scatter observed on 06 Feb by the E-PROFILE ALC in Bern, Switzerland, in proximity to the location of the picture in Figure 1. A massive intrusion of Saharan dust reaching the boundary layer in the late morning can be observed.

 

 

 

 

 

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Fig.3 Back-trajectories arriving in Bern, Switzerland on 06 Feb 12:00 for different altitudes. They clearly indicate the Saharan origin of the airmass. Data from HYSPLIT accessible at www.ready.noaa.gov.

 

 

 

 

 

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Fig.4 Overview of attenuated backscatter profiles observed on 05 Feb at several central-European stations. The area delimited by the orange line denotes the area where high dust concentrations were observed. Interactive view at: https://e-profile.eu/#/?currentView=CMProfile&measurementDate=2021-02-05&QLSize=70

 

 

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Fig. 5: Overview of attenuated backscatter profiles observed on 06 Feb at several central-European stations The area delimited by the orange and blue lines denote the area where high dust concentrations were observed during the morning and the afternoon, respectively. Interactive view at: https://e-profile.eu/#/?currentView=CMProfile&measurementDate=2021-02-06&QLSize=70

 

 

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Fig. 6: Overview of attenuated backscatter profiles observed on 07 Feb at several central-European stations. The area delimited by the orange line denotes the area where high dust concentrations were observed. Interactive view at: https://e-profile.eu/#/?currentView=CMProfile&measurementDate=2021-02-07&QLSize=70

 

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More images of the phenomenon in the Swiss Alps near Grand Saint-Bernard

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Apple standard weather app & EUMETNET

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With its new update to iOS 14, Apple’s standard weather app now attributes EUMETNET and Meteoalarm as its source.

The app uses the Weather Channel, a company owned by IBM, whose weather systems use the Meteoalarm feeds.

   

Collaborative Forecasting for Aviation in Europe

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Once again, this year, Operational Meteorologists at 12 national MET Providers will be taking part in the European Cross Border Weather Advisory procedure for EUROCONTROL Network Manager. The EUMETNET members producing the daily forecast output provides clear, and internationally consistent, information regarding the severity and probability of convective weather across the forecast domain; which has expanded further for 2020 and encompasses some of the busiest routes and sectors in Europe.

The procedure’s primary goal aims to increase EUROCONTROL Network Manager’s (NM) and participating ANSP’s (Airspace Navigation Providers) awareness of potentially significant convection that could disrupt the European Aviation network within the next 12 to 36 hours to support operational decision makers’ effective and efficient management of the network. However, this year, the cross-border weather procedure will also play an important role in ensuring that the recovery from COVID-19 is as delay free as possible. Traditionally weather is one of the major causes of capacity reduction across wide areas of the aviation network, so a collaborative approach to weather management will be vital to ensure its impact is reduced as much as possible as air traffic begins to increase.

Cumulonimbus (CB) clouds are the main meteorological phenomena that this forecast focuses on, primarily as CB clouds can be used as a proxy for possible ‘weather avoidance’. Weather avoidance is the unplanned movement or deviation off the original flight plan requested at short notice by pilots as a result of ‘weather’ ahead. The reason that pilots would want to avoid these cloud types is due to the hazardous conditions associated within them (e.g. severe turbulence, downdraughts, icing and lightning). Multiple avoidance requests will lead to additional workload and complexity for air traffic controllers, who are then unable to safely handle the ‘normal’ amount of traffic, and capacity of the airspace is affected. This ultimately can lead to the implementation of decisions and measures to help mitigate against this by ANSPs.

The service this year has a delayed start of 1 June (due to COVID-19) and will  run until to the end of September 2020.

Example of a forecast

Forecast domain

WMO Press release regarding the impact of Covid-19 on observing systems

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https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/wmo-concerned-about-impact-of-covid-19-observing-system

 

 

ECMWF Webinars

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ECMWF is organising a series of seminars given by international experts to explore aspects of the use of machine learning in weather prediction and climate studies. See below for further details:

Seminars to probe potential for machine learning in weather prediction