Minutes of the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Working Group on Co-operation Between European Forecasters (WGCEF) By Christian Csekits, ZAMG (chair) and Jos Diepeveen KNMI (vice-chair) Thursday 29th – Friday 30th September 2016 - Reading, United Kingdom

List of Participants (in alphabetical order):

BLAAUBOER Dick Eumetnet MIDTBO Knut Helge Met Norway CSEKITS ChristianZAMG/Austria OLMEDA Dolores AEMET/Spain CUSACK Evelyn Met. Eireann PALJAK Taimi Estonian Meteorological DIEPEVEEN Jos KNMI/The Netherlands and Hydrometeorological Service DOUBLET Karen-Helen Met Norway PATERSON Laura UK HAUSEN Robert DWD/Germany RALIENE Vida Hydrometeorological Service of Lithuania HEWSON Tim ECMWF RAZY Alissa Meteorological Service of Israel JOHANSSON Mats Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute ROULET Bernard Meteo-France KALIN Lovro Meteorological and SKELBAEK Michael DMI/Denmark Hydrometeorological Service of Croatia VANHAMEL Thomas RMI/Belgium LAINE Mikko FMI/Finland Participants via videoconference: LANG Will UK Met Office Mr. Attilio DI DIODATO (Italy), LEITAO Paula IPMA/Portugal Mr. Panos GIANNOPOULOS (Greece), LETESTU Andre-Charles MeteoSwiss Mrs. Chryssoula PETROU(Greece) MANCZAK Piotr Hydrometeorological Service of Poland Mrs. Adamantia VLASSI (Greece)

6 The European Forecaster Thursday afternoon, 29th of September • Cooperation on the high resolution model (2,5 km), MetCoOp (Arome) between MET and SMHI, will soon Session I ‘Introduction’: expand to include FMI (Nordic Cooperation). Dr Florence Rabier (Director General ECMWF) gave a Cooperation on model development and HPC. welcome address. ECMWF was very happy and • MEPS, MetCoOp (Arome) (operational from 1st pleased to host the group. Florence emphasised that November), is running preoperational at the moment. these meetings are very important for ECMWF. They Ten members, 48 hours forecast. Arome-arctic, oper- are very pleased that a contact person from ECMWF ational model, 2,5km situated over Svalbard and (Tim Hewson) participates in the group. She northpole. Biggest challenge is sea-ice and SST. addressed the important point that WGCEF is a splen- • 150 year office anniversary. did platform for ECMWF for gaining experiences from the operational field of . MeteoSwiss, Andre Charles Letestu -The agenda was agreed and actions were reviewed from the last meeting. • Weissfluhjoch radar was the last to be built for the project RAD4ALPS. Pictures are now available. Will and Evelyn gave an opening speech. Will high- Switzerland has now 5 radars. lighted that the climate of cooperation between • The COSMO 1 (1.1 km) and COSMO E (ensemble, European countries has come under pressure due to 2.2 km) are now fully operational. COSMO 2 is different crises. But as we all know, scientific decommissioned. COSMO 7 (6.6 km) will remain progress has always flourished through collabora- temporally. tion. This working group is a symbol and a proof that • An AUTOMETAR will replace the observer at collaboration is possible and leads to progress in our -Airport from early October (between 0h and working field. 6h). TRENDS will be issued by the forecaster from the Christian and Jos then gave their opening address. forecasting room. The forecaster will also issue light- Christian mentioned the two most important ning and snow warnings for the airport during the changes of the last period. WGCEF has become a part night. of EUMETNET and also ECMWF has joined the group • Auto “flash orage” has been implemented. NinJo and it’s represented by Tim. Christian stressed the gives a warning proposition in case of heavy thunder- importance of collaboration. Jos and Christian are storms. If no action is taken, the warning is sent auto- eager to continue the fruitful work of Will and Evelyn matically. in the last years that they were chair and vice-chair. • Some assistants have resumed their diplomas in Christian and Jos will take over the role of chair and order to become AMF entry level ad-personam, the vice-chair for the next 4 years. Our great thanks go to others maintain their status as AMO. The AMF ad Will and Evelyn who receive some presents from personam will elaborate TAFs amongst other aero- Austria and The Netherlands. nautical tasks.The tasks of AMO will be observation • Welcome of the new WGCEF members (Christian) and elaborate forecasts for the general public. • One forecaster shift will be designated for research A warm welcome was given to the new members: at Geneva. Robert Hausen (DWD), Paula Leitao (IPMA), Laura • MeteoSwiss will not issue road forecasts any more. Paterson (UK Met office) and Alissa Razy (Met Service of Israel). ZAMG, Christian Csekits • Stable number of forecasters (Meteorologists) Session II ‘Updates since the last meeting’: • Meteorologists take over weather production for * Round table: participants introduce themselves and newspapers from meteorological assistants (1 giving update on new developments within their NMSs. person less: moving to IT) • Since summer 2016: common night shift of Norwegian Meteorological institute, observers and data validation (operational in 2017; Karen H Doublet further reduction (4 persons) in technical staff: • Since the beginning of 2016, the MET staff reduced retirement and new jobs within ZAMG) by 10-12%, mostly in the Forecasting division. MET • Visual Weather running on two independent has also been reorganized in one Forecasting divi- servers. System stability and safeguarding against sion (observations and climate are no longer a part of failure this division), and one division for development of • New operational forecasting room (6 instead of 4 the forecasting models and services. working places) and crisis management room are

The European Forecaster 7 expected: Now in the approval phase, projected Forecasting Division's specialists have got skills in start of construction works March 2017 usage of IBL Visual Weather and MetMorf tools. • Extension of meteorological support for poorer • Staff turnover and change of generations. Several countries (e.g. Moldova, Ghana, Seychelles, Sri weather forecasters in the Weather Forecasting Lanka, Myanmar, etc.) in cooperation with UN and Division as well as in the Aviation Meteorology World Bank Centre still are students. So, it's necessary to tune • Expansion of meteorological assistance for organ- their shifts to lectures' schedule. Four female fore- isers of big open-air events casters are on maternity leave. • Since autumn 2015 science park in the garden • Assistance from EUMETSAT. Two weather forecasters • 130 years anniversary SONNBLICK observatory have been granted the EUMETSAT Training Placement. (3106m) Results of their efforts were presented at the EUMET- SAT Conference in Darmstadt this September. DMI, Michael Skelbaek • Though the Lithuanian Hydrometeorological It has been quite a rollercoaster ride DMI has been Service's website www.meteo.lt was redesigned last out since the last update! Last year DMI lost three of year, it is still less popular than the old version. So, their largest customers in the maritime area and the old version old.meteo.lt is still available to together with others circumstances in January a customers. There is a problem regarding weather major round of savings, including a staff reduction, forecasts – they are different in both website was made, and for the first time forecasters were versions because of different ways and different fired. Unfortunately the situation has gone from bad times of data input: in the old version, forecasts are to worse, with the commercial side of DMI not updated manually once a day, in the new one – four achieving its targets. So DMI is waiting with anxiety times per day, after each run of the model. for another round of savings in November. • The adjustment of the website to mobile phones is under development. • The supercomputer is now on Island and in spite • LHMS has joined MeteoAlarm in 2015, warnings of the distance it has so far worked perfectly! The on the MeteoAlarm website have become available cooperation with SMHI and met.no on a common since this March. supercomputer 2022 is also progressing as planned. • Our cooperation in aviation with SMHI is very AEMET, Spain Dolores Olmeda successful. We are using the same production • The non-hydrostatic model HARMONIE is still fully program for low level forecasting which gives a great operational running on the new super computer benefit for the pilots. The cooperation includes that (BULL). There are also plans to run a 2.5 km resolution DMI makes TAF’s for Southern Sweden and that both multimodel high resolution Ensemble Prediction institutions can overtake each other's production in System (GLAMEPS) based on HARMONIE instead of case of emergency HIRLAM. • The NAMCON- portal (Northern-Europe Aviation • The South West Functional Airspace Block (SW FAB) Meteorology Consortium) NorthAvimet has also been Portugal/Spain has been created and now is in a pre- released with great success. The collaboration between operational phases consisting of coordination of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Norway and SIGMET message between both countries. Sweden SMHI has some exciting prospects • Since last week a new software (IBL) for message • In 2017 it is planned that the current radar will be switching system (Moving Weather) and a briefing replaced by a Doppler radar. software (Aero Weather) for aeronautical affairs is available in AEMET. Hydrometeorological Service of Lithuania, • Last summer the first phase of the METAR AUTO Vida Raleine project started in selected aerodromes outside Marine Forecasting Division was reorganized last normal operating hours. Later on, METAR AUTO will year and its staff reduced up to 60 %. Weather fore- be implemented in other airports when needed. All casts and warnings for Klaipeda's seaport in night- these procedures are being put into operation time are made by meteorologists of the Weather according to the air navigation service provider Forecasting Division in Vilnius (~300 km distance (ENAIRE) and the airports authority (AENA). from the sea). • AEMET provided meteorological support to the • In the Aviation Meteorology Centre, the Messir Vision "Tall Ships Races 2016", which began on July 7 in workstation has been upgraded, while the Weather Antwerp and ended in A Coruña on August 14.

8 The European Forecaster Meteorological Service of Israel, • IMS will be celebrating its 80th Anniversary in Alissa Razy 2017 !! International Collaboration IMGW Poland, Piotr Mańczak • IMS joined Working Group for the Cooperation • There haven't been any big changes in organiza- between European Forecasters. tion of work in weather forecast offices, no signifi- • IMS joined two EUMETNET programs – EUMETCAL & cant developments have been implemented either. EMMA (METEOALARM). The integration into METEO- • IMGW has participated in the organization of the ALARM will probably be apparent in the METEOALARM World Youth Days in July. We prepared special fore- web site sometime in the beginning of 2017. casts and warnings, which were available for • After two years of participation in the scientific pilgrims via special website and on apps. During this research of the European Consortium for Small-scale event IMGW cooperated with military meteorologists Modeling (COSMO), IMS is in the process of joining (e.g. everyday on-line meetings), because the army the consortium as a full member. The COSMO is responsible for VIP’s protection (the Pope, in this General Meeting in September 2017 is planned to case). We took this opportunity to extend meteoro- take place in Jerusalem. logical data exchange with the army. New Technologies & Forecasting Tools • IMGW has been exchanging meteorological data • The IMS IT-department developed a forecaster with General Directorate of The State Forests since interface to visualize lightning detection measure- last year too. ments of the Israeli detection network (consisting 11 • In March, we organized Baltic+ course in Warsaw, detection sites across the country). The system has a which was a part of the training programme of National built-in alarm to notice the forecaster of a region of Meteorological Services from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania frequent lightning, suspected as severe TS. and Poland, under the sponsorship of EUMETSAT. • The Israeli local COSMO model was updated – a This course has consisted, for the first time, of 2 parts: 2.8 km run based on the ECMWF 9 km deterministic 3 weeks on-line and 3 days stationary. runs. 4 times a day runs, including data assimilation of radar, AMDAR, surface observations and FMI (Finland), Mikko Laine radiosondes. The quantitative precipitation estimate • Petteri Taalas was elected as a Secretary-General was significantly improved. of WMO for a four year term 2016-2020. Juhani • The process of renovating the meteorological infra- Damski new Director General of FMI. Anssi Vähämäki structure at the Israeli airports is in its final stage – is the new head of Weather and Safety Centre. all airports are now equipped with full Automated • Aviation weather service in Tampere has been Weather Observing Systems (AWOS) including closed and moved to Helsinki. Now in Helsinki there ceilometers and visibility meters (forward scattering) is one 24/7-office for civil-aviation service, and which report in real time every few minutes to the other office doing two shifts for military weather forecasting center. The LLBG airport has full CAT II service. All aeronautical meteorologists from systems (including 8 RVR sensors). A new interna- Helsinki and Tampere have been trained to work on tional airport is built in the desert, the vicinity of both desks. Eilat, with complete AWOS. • Sounding station in Tikkakoski, middle of Finland, • IMS is in the process of installing an AWOS on a will be closed end of year 2016. Next year we only Voluntary Observing Ship (VOS). Out of the ~10 VOS have two operational sounding stations, one in reporting to the IMS, one will be installed with an southern Finland, other one in northern Finland. AWOS and will report every 1 hour through satellite • MOS (Model Output Statistics) operated tempera- communication in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. ture in operational use from summer 2016. • Joint Nordic operational numerical weather predic- Education & Training tion. (Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark) Plans for • IMS with the Bar Ilan University is producing a series a joint Harmonie model in 2016 and a joint super- of academic courses in Meteorology intended to computer 2018. enable non-science graduates to gain the necessary scientific background in Meteorology needed to RMI Belgium, Thomas Vanhamel comply with WMO Meteorologist requirements – Atmospheric Radiation, Remote Sensing, Thermo- • For D+3 to D+5: forecasters can give early-warn- dynamics, Cloud Physics & Dynamical Meteorology ings for excessive rain and thunder.

The European Forecaster 9 • Updated procedure in collaboration with the Models (Flemish) government for heat warnings. Wallonia: in • High resolution coastal wave model is operational cooperation with the public service of Wallonia. (200m resolution) • Development of thresholds for issuing heat-warnings • High resolution model AROME (2.5 km) is available for Wallonia using the wet bulb globe temperature. for overseas French territories • Two forecasters successfully assisted a racecar • AROME-PI nowcasting high resolution model (1.3 km) and airplane using solar energy in a race… is operational • Expertise weather forecast flux. Yield hourly DMO • AROME-PE high resolution ensemble model (2.5 km) for 11 Belgian regions which can interactively be pre operational adapted by the forecasters on duty and interpolated global model ARPEGE: test for new schemes of in time/space. convection parameterization and surface conditions • New forecasting “paradigm”: automated hourly forecasts where people can customize their warn- Organization ings and forecasts (i.e. risk of frost at a certain loca- • Continuous reduction of staff tion etc). • Launch of a project of a new fully automated • Implementation of a drought index using precipita- production database. Major change for forecasters tion data (SPI) and modelled soil moisture (from the that now fill database: in the next 3 years, they will hydrological model at the RMI). be reassigned to services for customers.

DWD, Robert Hausen UK Met Office, Will Lang • Further progress in including more efficient auto- • In 2015 the Met Office published an independent matic-generated warning suggestions in actual state review of its value to the British economy, estimated of warnings (especially for parameters wind and at £30 billion (~36 billion euros) over the next 10 thunderstorms). years. We have also promised the Government that • Customer-dependent delivery of warnings (several we will cut costs substantially while improving quali- products with only basic or more detailed information). ty of services over the next 4 years. So to deliver • Successful development of our DWD Warnwetter both this value and savings, a new change initiative, App, actually more than 2 million users. the 'Transformation and Efficiency' programme is • Advancement/upgrading to a natural multi-hazard now underway. A key component of the problem will App (including storm floods, avalanche warnings, be a radical redesign of our forecasting processes flood forecasting, etc. from other authorities) is which enables high-value forecaster advice to be planned. fully integrated with the data streams used in our products and services. , Taimi Paljak • In addition, the latest upgrade to our NWP suite will see the domain of both the 1.5km UKV model • Development of HARMONIE model. and 2km MOGREPS-UK ensemble increased • Implementation and development FMI Road substantially, and the temporal range of these high Weather Forecasting Model resolution models increased from 36hrs to 120hrs. • ISO certificate for the whole forecasting department KNMI, Jos Diepeveen Meteo France, Bernard Roulet • From the beginning of 2016 we started to make Warning procedures forecasts for Dutch Caribbean parts: Saba, St • Changes in vigilance procedure: tooltip on website Eustatius (Statia) Bonaire. (Before it was outsourced displays parameters and timing for yellow vigilance. to Meteo Curacao). • Experience feedback after the catastrophic event • With the coming of a new super computer next two of October 3rd 2015 in Cannes (20 casualties) years we will be able to calculate ensembles for • New threshold for urban areas for red vigilance Harmonie. Warnings are broadcast on mobile phone • Installation of 2 new radars, dual pol. Operational • Radar images are available on internet coming year. • Outlook: Meteo France and other partners (Civil • Weather room will develop into warning and Security, etc...) are working to take into account advice centre, with different kind of hazard types vulnerability and to adapt vigilance procedure to being monitored. smaller areas

10 The European Forecaster • Impact based warning are further developed, in • Pre-operational AROME 4 runs a day. cooperation with UKMO. • Struggling with the perspective of citizens, are we DHMZ (Croatia), Lovro Kalin fully aware of their needs, discussion about setting • Forecasting Department - cca 10 people (+ 2 up a citizen panel. apprentices on minimum wage) • We are investigating a new meteorological work- • Maritime Branches in Split and Rijeka (7+3 fore- station; colleagues have visited FMI, next year oper- casters) ational. Aim is to integrate all the data and combine • 2 duty forecasters + 1 on HRT (Croatian Radio- it with a production tool. Television) • Changes of the role of a forecaster, all are working in • general forecasts (public, Government, media etc.) projects, research or doing customer relationships. • special forecasts (road maintenance, forest fires, • Number of staff is fairly stable and no big reduc- energy company etc.) tion is to be expected. • warnings (general warnings for Civil protection service, MeteoAlarm, heat waves...) MET EIREANN, Evelyn Cusack • Difficulties with employment of new people • New Director appointed, Dr Eoin Moran. (Government restriction) several people on appren- • As the long economic recession begins to tice program (minimum wage), one employed, other recede 10 new meteorologists have been appointed, waiting in Rijeka local authorities financially • some to fill vacancies but some newly created posts supported necessary employment for PhDs in meteorology. • participation on international weekly video-confer- • A new Flood Forecasting Centre has been agreed ence on forest fire coordination on by the Government to be located in the forecast • flash floods warnings (within MeteoAlarm) - coop- office. 11 new staff are to be employed, some being eration with Hydrology Division a new cross-breed between a hydrologist and a • synoptic climatology - Determination of weather meteorologist ie a hydrometeorologist. types • Climate stations continue to be automated. • 24-hour shift introduced in the Maritime Branch (Split) SHMI, Mats Johansson • New workstation (Visual Weather) It’s in the • Started to upgrade our radar stations. We finished configuration process (a lot of work to be done) First the third one earlier this month. Nine left and all of phase (2017) - visualisation of prognostic products them will be finished late in 2018. Second phase - production and dissemination of • Work started to upgrade our observation stations end-forecasts so that we should be able to get observations more • In 2017 the following is to be expected: often than once in an hour. Introduction of Workstation to operational practice. • For a couple of years we have been running the Introduction of new forecasts (e.g. cold spells - this high resolution model Harmonie (Arome) together winter?) Implementation of CAP protocol. with Norway. We are now also running a high resolu- • A new big procject (METMONIC) is proposed for the tion ensemble. EU funding (cca 30 mil Eur), in order to modernize • Started a study about impact-based warnings. and build a comprehensive observation network • Done a lot of upgrades of products on www.smhi.se. (new radars, vertical profilers, automatic stations, Unfortunately we have very few products in other buoys etc.) languages than Swedish. Introduced an ensemble fore- cast with up to three different solutions of the forecast. ECMWF, Tim Hewson • Investigating the possibility to work together with • ECMWF continues to expand, Copernicus staff now FMI with the Ice-chart for the Baltic Sea. at Reading University, due to lack of space, not ideal. • Tender out for new supercomputer site, tentative IPMA/Portugal Paula Leitao bids from Iceland, Finland, Luxembourg, Italy, • Problems with funding due to the financial crisis. + Exeter and Slough in UK. Decision expected Feb Therefore collaboration with other geophysical fields. 2017. • Providing the weather via an App. • Possible relocation of staff to be considered after • New 3d radar, whole country is covered now. that, still very uncertain • Weather stations maintainance is now done by • Uncertainty regarding the impact of BREXIT on EC. IPMA itself. Watch this space. Core is not EU funded, but special

The European Forecaster 11 project work is, and in particular Copernicus. Update on EUMETNET Storm-Naming “Business as usual” on these fronts for now at least. Task Team and presenting the new head • My team at ECMWF has recently expanded; should of the Task Team (Christian) permit more work on model products (staff are EU First Christian gave a short overview of the ambition funded, as part of the IMPREX and ANYWHERE and mission of this task team. Then he presented – projects) as key aspect of his talk- the next steps for the future • More work now at ECMWF on post-processing and to get ready with this project for the next phase of statistical downscaling (e.g. to predict point rainfall). EMMA, which should start in 2019. First we seek for Outcomes are still to be decided, though a flash two NMSs that want to do the storm naming for flood layer in GLOFAS is a definite target. intense lows affecting the Mediterranean region. Moreover rules for coordinating the different region- WGCEF Newsletter al storm naming systems have to be developed to * Discussion of the 21th WGCEF Newsletter (Bernard) ensure that a low causing severe weather has only * WGCEF website and social media report (Andre- one and the same name in whole Europe. Charles) Furthermore cooperation with the WMO in analogy with tropical storm naming has to be organized. EUMETNET update (Dick Blaauboer) Collaboration with University of Berlin is also neces- On the future of EUMETNET: the current phase of the sary to avoid that different names for the same programmes will end 31/12/2018, which means an storm are used. And finally the project proposals for extension of one year. The EIG agreement between EMMA have to be prepared. all Members (31 NMHSs) signed in 2009 will expire - Integrate the storm naming issue into the new in October 2019. A new EIG agreement, ready by end fase of EMMA. of 2018, will be synchronized with the new - Depressions/Storms should have the same name Programme Phase, starting January 2019. over whole Europe. A European NMHS Strategy Paper 2015 – 2025 has - Evelyn is unanimously chosen as the new storm been adopted by the Assembly in spring 2016. A task leader. EUMETNET Strategy Implementation Group (ESIG), a - A compromise have been found with the group of directors led by Peter Binder from University of Berlin. MeteoSwiss, elaborated the strategy in new ideas Session III ‘Presentations for cooperation. The report was also adopted in spring this year. During summer 2016 Task Teams *Bernard Roulet: ‘AROME PI - were established to explore these new areas for new Meteo France Nowcasting Model’ cooperation. They will report to STAC and PFAC early AROME-PI is a the new nowcasting operational model October 2016. of Meteo France. It has a lot of similarities with The projects: all projects in the forecasting domain, AROME (same resolution, same coupling model, EMMA, EMMA-H, Eumetcal, C-SRNWP, SRNWP EPS II, etc...) but also differences: the data assimilation is ASIST are well underway, details can be found on the very short [-15mn, +15mn] so a great weight is given website: to observations (especially surface and radar obser- http://www.euroforecaster.org/presentations_2016 vations). AROME-PI is a non cycle model with 24 runs /eumetnet.pdf times a day. First guess is given by an AROME fore- Main themes of the yearly Heads of Forecasting cast. Each run of AROME-PI has a 6 hour forecast with meeting in Warsaw in May 2016 included “Impact 15mn frequency outputs. Results can be displayed based warnings and forecasting” and “Changing role on forecaster workstation but also with tables that of the forecaster”. help identify useful parameters (for example deep Related non-EUMETNET projects: convection parameters, winter diagnoses, etc...). - Aristotle, kick-off in Rome, February 2016: Objective scores show that AROME-PI has better http://aristotle.ingv.it/ . Seven individual NMHSs results than AROME especially in the first 2 hours. and EUMETNET are joining, a project financed by and in support of the ERCC in Brussels. * Lovro Kalin: - High Impact Weather project, part of WMO WWRP, ‘Case study and warning verification’ kick-off in Exeter, April 2016, multi-disciplinary approach of HIWeather, important research support- Experiences with new ECMWF precipitation type ing impact based forecasting/warning. products are presented, based on a single (and so

12 The European Forecaster far the only) case in January 2015. Freezing rain was Africa (few sounding stations coupled with a lack of announced even in the medium range (D+120 recorded or transmitted surface data by unstable hours), and was consistent as the date approached, countries). Examples of significant weather events so red warning was issued in timely manner. As fore- include flash floods in cities and in the desert, dense casted, event lasted whole afternoon and evening, fog, frost, snow, supercells and microbursts, and covering significant part of continental Croatia. dust/haze events. Of note is the heavy dust event of However, no major damage or casualties were September 2015, where a significant dust cloud was reported, probably due to low precipitation amount. kicked up in Syria and advected south-southwest- A simple verification of warnings issued by the ward into Israel, leading to 4-5 days of low visibility Forecasting Department are presented, mostly in a and poor air quality. This event was exceptional in form of 4x4 contingency table (green, yellow, many respects: the time of year, the expansiveness orange, red). For heavy precipitation, a significant (state-wide), the amount of time it persisted, and the number of misses is noticed, partly due to the very source of the dust were all rare if not unprecedented rainy season (2014), with several unpredicted strong aspects of dust events in Israel. convection developments. For the strong wind events, signal is significatnly better due to a large * André-Charles Letestu: number of strong bora episodes, that are very ‘New visualisation of the severe frequent on the Adriatic coast. For heat waves, thunderstorm checklist’ results are better for extremely hot 2015 season, For many years, forecasters at MeteoSwiss have compared to less hot 2016 season. In 2016 a signifi- computed a severe thunderstorm checklist in order cant number of misses is noticed due to low to help his or her decision to issue warnings. The predictability of (high) morning temperatures on the checklist has been developed to overcome the Adriatic coast, and partly due to high sensitivity of models weakness to represent convection. During the algorithm (narrow thresholds). the summer season, a checklist index is calculated daily, for both dynamic and airmass thunderstorms, * Alissa Razy: which gives to the forecasters a unified method to ‘Operational forecasting in Israel’ approach severe convection. The main ingredients of the check list are instability (CAPE, LI,T500-T850), The Israel Meteorological Service (IMS) is the newest moisture(Td, thetaE, Pw), Wind shear(0-6km, 0-3km) member of the WGCEF. Although some may be and also subjective ingredients depending on the surprised by the inclusion of Israel in a European- synoptic situation. The checklist index is calculated based group, the state is already affiliated with using an excel table in which the forecasters enter Europe in many fields, including meteorology e.g. for each parameter one of three classes. Since May WMO Region VI-Europe; ICAO Region L-Southern 2016, NinJo's latest version allows to represent Europe, Israel and Turkey. Originally founded in 1937 directly the severe thunderstorm index on the map. under the British Mandate Government with Rudolf Feige as director, it became the IMS in 1948 with the creation of the state of Israel, under the Ministry of * Tim Hewson: ‘Model formulation Transport. Over the years the IMS has joined various and forecast products at ECMWF – international organizations, including the ECMWF, recent advances and future plans’ INCA, and COSMO. The research department of the Model resolution upgraded on Mar 8th this year to IMS is involved in various projects associated with 9/18/36km, new cubic grid these organizations, and the climatology department issues reports, reviews, and the climatological atlas. Step in resolution was at day 10, now at day 15, so The operational meteorology department is responsi- now only affects the monthly forecast. Some new ble for issuing forecasts for the public, aviation, sea physics introduced at same time, gives e.g. better forecasts, fire weather, and pollution forecasting. temps near coasts. Scores continue to improve with Some challenges faced by forecasters in Israel: sharp each new cycle. ECMWF still in the lead! changes in climate and topography over small areas, Next upgrade planned for late Nov, sea ice model for leading to highly disparate weather over small first time + much higher ocean resolution. distances and compromising representation in global Some nice new features added to ecCharts during models; also, lack of upstream observational data year (e.g. simulated imagery, thickness, probabilistic due to Israel’s location west of both a large body of products combining HRES and ENS, with user-define water (the Mediterranean Sea) and data-sparse north weights) – feedback welcome!

The European Forecaster 13 Forecast issues page / severe event catalogue criteria will take into account most recent climatologi- continue to be updated, hopefully being used! cal data and impact that heat has on human body. They will be based on maximum temperature differen- * Paula Leitao: ‘Weather Forecasting – tiation, minimum temperature and duration of heat how we do it in Portugal’ wave. Changes to other warnings criteria will be made in the future including impacts caused by dangerous The weather watch and forecasting area of Portugal phenomena and their spatial diversity. includes mainland Portugal, the islands of the Azores and Madeira and the Atlantic as far as 40W. There are three forecasting teams (one for aviation, * Laura Paterson: ‘#nameourstorms – the others for general purposes and maritime fore- Improving the Communication casting) working in two IPMA centres, at Lisbon and of Severe Weather’ at Ponta Delgada, Azores. In September 2015, the Met Office and Met Éireann ECMWF model, ALADIN model and IPMA post- began a 2 year pilot scheme to name wind storms that processing system are important forecasting tools. were forecast to impact the UK and the Republic of The forecasts communication to the general public is Ireland. The aims were to provide a single authoritative based on the web page, the mobile phone App and naming system for the storms that affect the UK and the collaboration with national broadcasting system, Ireland and to raise the awareness of severe weather television and newspapers. before it hits. The naming scheme used was linked to The Meteorological Warning System (according to Met Office and Met Éireann severe weather warnings, EMMA program) is based on fixed thresholds for large scale wind events that were expected to depending on local climatology for 18 regions in cause substantial impacts. The storms were named by mainland, 4 regions in Madeira and Porto Santo operational meteorologists and the names were then islands and 3 groups of islands in Azores. Warnings communicated to the public through a wide variety of are issued from 24 to 72 hours in advance at the traditional and social media channels. Analysis shows web page and App and warning bulletins are sent for that there was a huge amount of media and public specific costumers. Dedicated channels with Civil engagement with the names, and that the 55% of Protection National Authority with a daily Weather people surveyed changed their behaviour in some way Briefing allows a close and constant monitoring of upon hearing about a named storm. There was both the weather and the vulnerability of the territory and positive and negative feedback on the pilot and some the prevention of risk situations. changes are being introduced this year in order to The forecasters training programme is based on on- improve the scheme. Overall the pilot so far has been line and face-to-face courses, on face-to-face train- deemed a success, in that it has achieved both of its ing in operational environment, on the preparation aims. The scheme is however not without its chal- of case studies, and on the participation in studies lenges, and these will continue to be worked through in multidisciplinary teams. during the 2016-2017 winter season.

* Piotr Manczak: ‘Weather Warning *Michael Skelbaek: Update on severe System in Poland’ weather warnings in Denmark Meteorological warning system in Poland consists of This presentation showed the general picture of how forecasts of dangerous meteorological phenomena warning of severe weather in Denmark is performed. for the next 3 days, weather warnings and post- DMI is issuing warnings for a wide spectrum of warning information. Additionally, 3-day impact weather phenomena and events where weather based threat forecast is prepared daily for the plays a role. Government Center for Security. The warnings can be performed as a three-stage approach: warning outlook - risk forecasting - warn- There are legal regulations of Ministry of Environment ing. The latest warning is a collaboration between regarding thresholds for the first level of warnings. the Emergency Management of Copenhagen, the Criteria for the second and third warning level have supply- and utility company of Copenhagen and been developed by the Institute of Meteorology and DMI, where a forecaster is dedicated to serve those Water Management and modified with users (especial- community in case of severe rain in Copenhagen. ly with the Crisis Management Center). Some of the warning criteria require changes. The works on chang- ing heat wave warning criteria have begun. The new

14 The European Forecaster Session V ‘WGCEF concept and request session’ Group 5: Laura Question en Concept -1. better collaborative working between the members. Every 6 months a video briefing In this session, the group was divided into 6 sub- -2. Working with social media groups. The aim of these subgroups was to get a -3. Promote this group more. With other people in quick and broad response about the functioning and the office role of WGCEF, ideas about the future role of the -4. topic idea role of the forecaster in the future working group, how things could be improved. The rough outcome is stated in the bullets below. In course of 2016/2017, Cristian and Jos will work Group 6: Karen-Helen further on the suggestions and will try to incorporate -1. Two days meeting is very positive the majority of the suggestions in the next meeting -2. Updates round table should be shorter -3. Increase exchange between forecasters, forum Group 1: Christian Additional ideas: -1. to be time efficient during meeting much faster putting round table into PPT. 1) Facebook group for communication between the -2. Special topic for every meeting. WGCEF members -3. Active working group: initiate more task teams on 2) Overview of all activities in the field of forecast- interesting topics. ing (Eumetnet, Eumetcal, WMO, working groups, etc.) on our website Group 2: Jos Eumetnet Task Team ‘Naming storms -1. Nice meeting. Active between, closed FB group in Europe’: -2. Website: Newsletter, vision -3. Fixed topic every year and miscellaneous topic We are looking for additional members working in half/half this group (Natasa, Klaus and Christian have left this group). If you are interested to join this group, Group 3: Evelyn please contact the new chair Evelyn Cusack! -1. Longer meeting: propose to go on till Saturday Closure and meeting location for next year morning -2. Practical forecasting help, tools On behalf of Mr Przemysław Łagodzki, Director -3. More communication between the year General of IMGW-PIB, and Mrs Teresa Zawiślak, Head -4. Topic for meeting: Explanation about climate of Weather Forecast Services, Piotr Manczak offers change his Institute in Warsaw as a place of WGCEF meeting in 2017, the meeting will be held on the 12th and 13th Group 4: Tim of October 2017. -1. Membership, Some countries are involved but dormant. Getting others more involved. Working with Christian closes the meeting and gave thanks to the personal contact to involve the dormant countries. hosts of ECMWF, Tim Hewson and Karen Clarke. -2. getting more attention for other forecasters, criti- cal mass for more public is needed -3. Starting maybe earlier Thursday morning -4. Schedule reorganised, cluster topics. (eg storm- naming)

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