REPORT

Steering Committee Meeting of the Phase II of SEE-MHEWS-A Project

12 June 2020

1. INTRODUCTION

Following the successful conclusion of the project “Building Resilience to Disasters in the Western Balkans and Turkey” in 2014, and responding to the needs identified by the beneficiaries the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in cooperation with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) initiated a project “South-East European Multi-Hazard Early Warning Advisory System (SEE-MHEWS-A)”, which aims to strengthen existing early warning capacities in the South- East Europe region. During the first phase of the project, an Implementation Plan was prepared outlining the concept and guidelines for the development of the regional advisory system. The second phase of the SEE-MHEWS-A project commenced in February 2018 and is supported by the World Bank through the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery and Instrument for Pre- Accession Assistance (IPA) of the European Commission. This project phase will be the beginning of implementation of the SEE-MHEWS-A, as broadly outlined in the Implementation Plan.

The fourth Project Steering Committee (PSC) meeting of the second phase of the project was organized as a teleconference on 12th June 2020. The meeting aimed to discuss the current status and plans for implementation of the project. The meeting was attended by 62 participants from project partners, stakeholders and WMO Secretariat (participant list is attached as Annex I). The agenda of the meeting is included as Annex II.

The meeting was opened by Michael Staudinger (President of RA VI, Director of Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik (ZAMG) and Chair of Project Steering Committee (PSC)), Florence Rabier, (Director-General, ECMWF), Eric Petermann, (Executive Director, EUMETNET), Daniel Kull (Senior Disaster Risk Management Specialist, World Bank) and Milan Dacić (WMO Representative for Europe and SEE-MHEWS-A Project Executive).

2. ORGANIZATION OF THE MEETING

2.1 Project Progress, Planning and Implementation Sari Lappi (Project Coordinator, WMO) and Milan Dacić (WMO Representative for Europe and SEE- MHEWS-A Project Executive)

The progress since the previous Steering Committee meeting in November 2019 has generally been efficient for all the project components, regardless of the difficulties resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. At the end of 2019, ECMWF and ZAMG were formally engaged by the World Bank in implementation of project, with ECMWF supporting implementation of all project components. Majority of the project activities are expected to be finalized before the end of 2020, but extension is needed for some of the planned activities (agreement with the World Bank needed).

Policy on the Exchange of Hydrological and Meteorological Data, Information, Forecasts and Advisories under the South-East European Multi-Hazard Early Warning Advisory System has been signed by all project participants except Meteorological and Hydrological Services of Turkey,

Technical Assistance to the current phase of the SEE-MHEWS-A project is provided with financial support from the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) and the European Union, the latter under the EU-WB/GFDRR Western Balkans DRM Program managed by the World Bank and GFDRR. The initial phase of the project was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.

Lebanon and (Albania and signed after the previous Project Steering Committee meeting). Following the Policy, Hungarian Meteorological Service (OMSZ) and ECMWF experts have been supporting the project participants in provision of additional meteorological observations to the Centralized Observational Database (CODB), which is based on SAPP, the operational acquisition and pre-processing system of ECMWF. Meteorological and hydrological data has also been collected and processed for hydrological modelling and nowcasting purposes. Meteorological observation requirements for the SEE-MHEWS-A and assessment of availability of observations in the region were developed by the OMSZ, with draft report provided to the WMO project management team.

Slovenian Environment Agency (ARSO), Hellenic National Meteorological Service (HNMS), Meteorological Service (IMS) and University of Belgrade continued the design of the limited-area NWP modelling systems (ALADIN, COSMO, ICON and NMM-B) and testing at ECMWF’s infrastructure and in ecFlow supervision system. Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service (DHMZ) applied the developed verification methodology to the Vrbas River catchment. Setting up and calibration of hydrological models (Lisflood and HBV), as well as setting up the INCA Nowcasting system were started for the Vrbas catchment.

Following project activities are planned to be implemented during the next period:

- Organization of regular submission of additional data by all SEE-MHEWS-A Data Policy signatories. Further signatures to the Policy if possible. - Quasi-operational running of LAMs, and connection to hydrological models and nowcasting system. - Preparation of meteorological verification report targeting each project participant country (depending data and NWP output availability). - Finalization of hydrological model calibration and setup of the system, and long-term running and production of flood forecasts for Vrbas River catchment. - Finalization of implementation of INCA for Vrbas River catchment. - Development of pilot Common Information Platform (CIP), and visualization of project outputs. - Training of hydrological forecasters (decision needed if physical workshop is possible). - Planning and fundraising for further project phases.

2.2 Infrastructure developments in WMO - GBON process and Data Policy Anthony Rea (Director, Infrastructure Department, WMO)

Global Numerical Weather Prediction requires continuous, real-time access to observations from the entire global domain. Currently there are challenges in the global coverage of observations, which limits the ability to understand and predict weather and climate patterns, both locally and globally. The lack of data can be related to data policy issues, technical capabilities or inadequate financial resources.

Global Basic Observing Network (GBON) is a Congress-approved WMO policy initiative that will help to improve the data availability globally. GBON reflects the fundamental recommitment of WMO Members to international data exchange in support of Global NWP as a basis for all weather and climate related products and services. Currently, the GBON regulatory material is in final drafting, and is planned to be approved by the Executive Council in September 2020. The regulatory material will specify the obligation of WMO Members to acquire and exchange certain observations at set minimum horizontal resolution and minimum frequency.

The actual implementation of GBON within all WMO Members will require a mix of policy-level, 2 technical and financial intervention, depending on the respective Member in question. The Systematic Observations Financing Facility (SOFF) is a concept for a unified financial mechanism that can fund the GBON in those areas where the local resources are (and will likely remain) insufficient, based on the principle that the burden of financing a global public good should fall to those who have the ability to shoulder it.

2.3 SEE-MHEWS-A Project Component 2 activities: Numerical weather prediction and nowcasting Jure Jerman (Head of Division for Meteorological, Hydrological and Oceanographic Modelling, ARSO), Andreadis Theodore (Researcher - Forecasting (NWP) and Research Division, HNMS), Pavel Khain (Head of Numerical Modelling, IMS), Vladimir Djurdjević (Associate Professor, University of Belgrade), Kristian Horvath (Head of Applied Research and Modelling Department, DHMZ), Bojan Kašić (Analyst, ECMWF) and Jasmina Hadzimustafić (Scientist, ZAMG).

NWP teams engaged in the SEE-MHEWS project activities have been actively working on testing and implementing LAM models at ECWWF infrastructure for the project purposes. The models are in the process of being set-up in the ecFlow for quasi-operational running utilizing the computing resources of the ECMWF members from the project region. ECMWF is supporting NWP groups with installation, optimisation, and running of their models (e.g. ALADIN, COSMO, ICON, NMM-B) in ECMWF’s computing environment.

ARSO is setting-up the ALADIN deterministic system in ecFlow at 2.5 km resolution, with two runs per day (depending of computing allocations). Currently ARSO is tuning and validating the system, with the aim to begin the production in June. In addition, the project will benefit from the A-LAEF ensemble system (by RC LACE), which is already running at ECMWF.

COSMO is run at ECMWF twice a day with 4 km resolution for a domain that covers most to the SEE- MHEWS-A region. The outputs of these runs are available for the SEE-MHEWS-A project purposes by the HNMS.

NMM-B model, including the pre-processor and post-processor have been successfully implemented by the University of Belgrade at ECMWF and is ready for quasi-operational running as soon as computing resources will be secured. MeteoSwiss has indicated the possibility of donating computing resources for the project for 2020-21, which would allow quasi-operational running of NMM-B. In the meanwhile, IMS donated resources for test running of NMM-B.

The suite for running ICON-LAM was prepared at ECMWF by the Israel IMS for 2.5 km resolution domain covering the project region. The quasi-operational running twice a day is planned to start in mid-June. IMS has also done preliminary verification of the model over the territory of Israel.

DHMZ is performing the evaluation of precipitation forecasts of five NWP models (ECMWF, ALADIN, COSMO, ICON, NMM-B) with available surface observations. Since the last Steering Committee meeting, DHMZ has been working on enhancement of the verification tools, and implementation of the verification methodology for and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Essential building blocks to perform SEE-MHEWS-A verification are nearly finished, with some work remaining to test GRIB data and to incorporate newly developed verification methods fully in verification chain. DHMZ will perform verification for all SEE-MHEWS-A countries after operational NWP data will be available.

ZAMG is in the progress of implementing INCA (Integrated Nowcasting through Comprehensive Analysis) for the Vrbas River catchment. INCA will provide precipitation, wind, temperature and humidity forecasts with hourly updates for the nowcasting range (up to 6 hours). Currently ZAMG is cooperating with the relevant institutions from the river basin area to collect ground observations 3 and radar data for testing. Regular submission of high frequency data will need to be organized in cooperation with the data providers in Bosnia and Herzegovina and ECMWF. INCA software is installed in the European Weather Cloud as agreed with the ECMWF, and testing is ongoing. During the summer, the team from ZAMG will organize a training workshop for the Meteorological and Hydrological Services in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

2.4 SEE-MHEWS-A Project Component 1 activities: Observations and database, Common Information Platform Mihály Szűcs (Vice President, Hungarian Meteorological Service), Volkan Firat (Analyst, ECMWF), Umberto Modigliani (Deputy Director of Forecasts, ECMWF) and Sari Lappi (WMO)

In order to enhance the quality of data assimilation in the project, it is crucial to share additional observations to those available via GTS (as specified in the SEE-MHEWS-A Data Policy). The aim of this phase is the regular data provision from all the countries who are signatories to the policy. The additional data will be utilized for data assimilation for NWP and nowcasting, and NWP verification. Data are collected at ECMWF and pre-processed by SAPP, the operational acquisition and pre- processing system of ECMWF. Guidelines for submitting the data were developed for the project countries to follow.

The project partners have been requested to provide test data to ECMWF, and once validated to begin regular submission of the additional observations. So far, Ukraine, , , , and Bosnia and Herzegovina (Federal Hydrometeorological Institute) have started the regular data submission. Number of other countries have provided test data, with plan to start the regular data submission as soon as possible. Updated status of the data provision can be found in ECMWF Confluence (https://confluence.ecmwf.int/display/SEEM/Status+of+countries+providing+observational+data).

According to the Data Policy all observing stations and platforms covered under the Policy must be registered and identified as SEE-MHEWS-A assets in OSCAR/Surface by respective Signatory. However, this registration should not delay the preparation of the test files or starting regular data provision.

Hungarian Meteorological Service has prepared a report on observation requirements for the SEE- MHEWS-A project, which focuses on the gaps between the requirements and capabilities in the region. Draft report will be provided to the Project Steering Committee for comments during the summer.

All outputs created during the demonstration phase of the project will be made accessible via pilot version of the Common Information Platform (CIP) for the project participants. This pilot version of CIP will be based on the web-service for European Flood Awareness System (https://www.efas.eu/efas_frontend/#/home), which is an open-source platform. The platform will be customized for SEE-MHEWS-A for visualization of outputs developed/collected during the demonstration phase of the SEE-MHEWS-A project. Majority of existing features will remain, and additional features will be developed. This pilot version of CIP will not include all the products and functionalities planned for the final version of CIP according to the Implementation Plan. The final solution for CIP may be based on a different solution (depending on the needs, possible technical solutions and funds available in the future). IT expertise will be hired to develop the front-end part of the platform, while ECMWF will support with the back-end related work.

2.5 SEE-MHEWS-A Project Component 3 activities: Hydrological modelling Yuri Simonov (Commission for Hydrology Advisory Working Group Member, Head of Department, 4 Hydrological Forecasts Department, Hydrometeorological Centre of Russia), Tatjana Vujnović (Head of the Hydrological Forecasting Division, DHMZ) and Fredrik Wetterhall (Senior Scientist, ECMWF)

The main goal of the hydrological modelling component is to setup hydrological forecasting in real- time over the pilot river catchment and disseminate the results to the project partners. The data collection and processing for the Vrbas River catchment has been to a large extent completed. Data has been collected from the two meteorological and hydrological services of Bosnia and Herzegovina, hydropower plant operators and water management agencies. Data collection has also included data rescue and digitization.

Setup of two hydrological (Lisflood and HBV) for the river catchment and calibration of the models is ongoing and will be finalized during the summer. Long-term runs and production of the flood forecasts will follow the calibration. During the following period, implementation of hydraulic model in the lower part of the river will be done. The forecast system will be validated with NWP inputs. Furthermore, real-time data flow, including water level and streamflow data and data from the hydropower plant operators will need to be organized.

3. Discussions and way forward

- Majority of the project partners signed the Data Policy in the previous PSC meeting, and those project partners that were not in the position to sign during the meeting are invited to inform the WMO when further signatures are possible. - Provision of test data and regular data is essential for the success of the project, and the countries are encouraged to continue this work actively during the summer. - Project Steering Committee meeting in connection with the Informal Conference of South- East European Directors of NMHSs is planned to be organized in November (decision needed of the dates and if physical meeting is possible). - Technical team meetings (especially TT-OBS, TT-HYDRO and TT-NWP) will be organized as required (nominations by the countries are still needed).

5 ANNEX I SEE-MHEWS-A Project Steering Committee Meeting participants June 2020 Director, President of Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie Michael Staudinger RA VI and Chair of SEE- [email protected] und Geodynamik 1 MHEWS-A PSC Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie Jasmina Hadzimustafic Austria Scientist [email protected] 2 und Geodynamik Institute of Geosciences, Energy, Klodian Zaimi Albania 3 Water and Environment [email protected] Federal Hydrometeorological Bosnia and Esena Kupusovic 4 Institute Herzegovina [email protected] Federal Hydrometeorological Bosnia and Azra Babic [email protected] 5 Institute Herzegovina Hydrometeorological Service of Bosnia and Darko Borojević Director [email protected] 6 Republic of Srpska Herzegovina Hydrometeorological Service of Bosnia and Assistant Director for Igor Kovacic 7 Republic of Srpska Herzegovina Meteorology [email protected] Meteorological and Hydrological Branka Ivančan-Picek Croatia Director [email protected] 8 Service Head of Applied Meteorological and Hydrological Kristian Horvath Croatia Research and Service 9 Modelling Department [email protected] Head of the Meteorological and Hydrological Tatjana Vujnovic Croatia Hydrological Service 10 Forecasting Division [email protected] Meteorological and Hydrological Rajkovic Oliver Croatia 11 Service

6 Meteorological and Hydrological Iris Odak Plenković Croatia [email protected] 12 Service Meteorological and Hydrological Dijana Oskorus Croatia 13 Service Meteorological and Hydrological Head of Hydrological Gordana Bušelić Croatia [email protected] 14 Service Department 15 Kleanthis Nicolaides Department of Meteorology Cyprus Director [email protected] Division of Hydrology & Hydrogeology & WDD Nicosia Kostas Aristeidou Cyprus District Office, Water 16 Development Department [email protected] Hellenic National Meteorological Athanasios Gatopoulos Brigadier General [email protected] 17 Service Hellenic National Meteorological Andreadis Theodore Greece 18 Service [email protected] Hellenic National Meteorological Tina Mita Greece [email protected] 19 Service 20 Kornéla Radics Meteorological Service Hungary President [email protected] Hungarian Meteorological Mihály Szűcs Hungary Vice President 21 Service [email protected] Head, Unit of Hungarian Meteorological Eszter Lábó Hungary International and Service 22 Scientific Relations [email protected] Head of Israel Nir Stav Meteorological Service Israel [email protected] 23 Meteorological Service Head of Numerical Pavel Khain Meteorological Service Israel 24 Modeling [email protected] 25 Alon Shtivelman Meteorological Service Israel [email protected]

7 26 Yoav Levi Meteorological Service Israel [email protected] Hussein Farhal EL Meteorological Department Jordan Director-General [email protected] 27 MOMANI 28 Dafi El-ryalat Meteorological Department Jordan [email protected] Lebanese Meteorological Marc Wehaïbé Lebanon Acting Director [email protected] 29 Department Institute of Hydrometeorology Luka Mitrovic Montenegro Director [email protected] 30 and Seismology Institute of Hydrometeorology Head of International Ivana Adzic Montenegro 31 and Seismology Relations [email protected] State Hydrometeorological Interim Director of the Mihail Grigoras 32 Service Service [email protected] State Hydrometeorological Head of Lidia Trescilo Moldova [email protected] 33 Service Meteorological Centre Head of State Hydrometeorological Ghennadii Rosca Moldova Meteorological [email protected] Service 34 Forecast Department State Hydrometeorological Head of IT&GIS Dan Titov Moldova [email protected] 35 Service Department 36 Ivica Todorovski Hydrometeorological Service North Macedonia Director [email protected] International Adviser Suzana Alcinova Monevska Hydrometeorological Service North Macedonia 37 to the PR [email protected] National Meteorological Director General of Elena Mateescu [email protected] 38 Administration NMA Director for National Meteorological Florinela Georgescu Romania Operational [email protected] Administration 39 Meteorology - NMA 8 National Meteorological Head of International Iulia Munteanu Romania 40 Administration Relations Office [email protected] Director of National National Institute of Hydrology Marius Matreata Romania Hydrological Forecasts [email protected] and Water Management 41 Centre - NIHWM Director of Drago Groselj Slovenian Environment Agency Environmental [email protected] 42 Measurement Office Director of Klemen Bergant Slovenian Environment Agency Slovenia Meteorology and [email protected] 43 Hydrology Office Head of Division for Meteorological, Jure Jerman Slovenian Environment Agency Slovenia Hydrological and Oceanographic 44 Modelling [email protected]

Miha Demšar Slovenian Environment Agency Slovenia [email protected] 45 46 Volkan Mutlu Coşkun State Meteorological Service Turkey Director General [email protected] Director of External Murat Altinyollar State Meteorological Service Turkey [email protected] 47 relations Departmentt Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Head of Int Coop dept Ruslan Reviakin Ukraine [email protected] 48 Center of UHMC 49 Vladimir Djurdjevic University of Belgrade Associate Professor [email protected]

9 Commission for Hydrology Advisory Working Group Hydrometeorological Centre of Yuri Simonov Russia Member, Head of [email protected] Russia Department, Hydrological Forecasts 50 Department Senior Disaster Risk Daniel Kull World Bank Group 51 Management Specialist [email protected]

Eric Petermann EUMETNET Executive Director [email protected] 52 53 Florence Rabier ECMWF UK Director-General [email protected] Director, Forecast Florian Pappenberger ECMWF UK 54 Department [email protected] Deputy Director, Umberto Modigliani ECMWF UK [email protected] 55 Forecast Department 56 Volkan Firat ECMWF UK Analyst [email protected] 57 Bojan Kasic ECMWF UK Analyst [email protected] 58 Fredrik Wetterhall ECMWF UK Senior Scientist [email protected] Director, Infrastructure Anthony Rea WMO Switzerland [email protected] 59 Department WMO Representative Milan Dacic WMO Switzerland [email protected] 60 for Europe 61 Sari Lappi WMO Croatia Project Coordinator [email protected] 62 Chantal Lespect WMO Switzerland Senior Secretary [email protected]

10 ANNEX II

South-East European Multi-Hazard Early Warning Advisory System Steering Committee Meeting of Phase II of SEE-MHEWS-A Project 12th June 2020

AGENDA

12.06.2020 Michael Staudinger, President of RA VI, Director of Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik (ZAMG), - Chair of SEE-MHEWS-A Project Steering Committee - Florence Rabier, Director-General, ECMWF 10:00 - 10:30 Welcome addresses Eric Petermann, Executive Director, EUMETNET Daniel Kull, Senior Disaster Risk Management Specialist, World Bank Milan Dacić, WMO Representative for Europe and SEE-MHEWS- A Project Executive, WMO

Sari Lappi, SEE-MHEWS-A Project Coordinator, WMO 10:30 - 10:40 Project progress and planning Milan Dacić, WMO

Infrastructure developments in Anthony Rea, Director, Infrastructure Department, WMO 10:40 - 11:00 WMO - GBON process and Data Lars Peter Riishojgaard, Deputy Director, Infrastructure Policy Department, WMO

Jure Jerman, Head of Division for Meteorological, Hydrological and Oceanographic Modelling, Slovenian Environment Agency

Antigoni Voudouri, Researcher - Forecasting (NWP) and Research Division and Andreadis Theodore, Researcher - Forecasting (NWP) and Research Division, Hellenic National SEE-MHEWS-A Project Meteorological Service Component 2 activities: 11:00 - 11:45 Numerical weather prediction Pavel Khain, Head of Numerical Modelling, Israel Meteorological Service and nowcasting Vladimir Djurdjević, Associate Professor, University of Belgrade

Bojan Kašić, Analyst, ECMWF

Kristian Horvath, Head of Applied Research and Modelling Department, Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service

11 Jasmina Hadzimustafić, Scientist, ZAMG

SEE-MHEWS-A Project Mihály Szűcs, Vice President, Hungarian Meteorological Service Component 1 activities: Volkan Firat, Analyst, ECMWF 11:45 - 12:15 Observations and database, Umberto Modigliani, Deputy Director of Forecasts, ECMWF Common Information Platform Sari Lappi, WMO

Yuri Simonov, Commission for Hydrology Advisory Working Group Member, Head of Department, Hydrological Forecasts SEE-MHEWS-A Project Department, Hydrometeorological Centre of Russia 12:15 - 12:35 Component 3 activities: Tatjana Vujnović, Head of the Hydrological Forecasting Division, Hydrological modelling Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service Fredrik Wetterhall, Senior Scientist, ECMWF

12:35 - 13:00 Discussion All participants

13:00 - 13:10 Conclusions and way forward Milan Dacić, WMO and Michael Staudinger, ZAMG

12