SOUTH-EAST EUROPEAN MULTI-HAZARD EARLY WARNING ADVISORY SYSTEM (SEE-MHEWS-A) OBSERVATIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR SEE-MHEWS-A PROJECT INVENTORY OF AVAILABLE DATA AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENTS TO THE EXISTING OBSERVATIONAL NETWORKS SUPPORTING SEE-MHEWS-A Report prepared by Róbert Tóth (Hungarian Meteorological Service) August 2020 CONTENTS 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. 1. SUMMARY ....................................................................................................................................... 5 2. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 5 3. Rolling Review of Requirements process ........................................................................................ 6 4. Integrated Nowcasting Comprehensive Analysis (INCA) ............................................................... 15 5. Results ........................................................................................................................................... 17 5.1. Survey of the meteorological monitoring capabilities of the region .................................... 17 5.2. Albania ................................................................................................................................... 17 5.3. Bosnia and Herzegovina ........................................................................................................ 20 5.3.1. Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina ......................................................................... 20 5.3.2. Republika Srpska (RS) .................................................................................................... 24 5.4. Bulgaria .................................................................................................................................. 25 5.5. Croatia ................................................................................................................................... 28 5.6. Cyprus .................................................................................................................................... 32 5.7. Greece ................................................................................................................................... 34 5.8. Hungary ................................................................................................................................. 41 5.9. Israel ...................................................................................................................................... 45 5.10. Jordan .................................................................................................................................... 51 5.11. Lebanon ................................................................................................................................. 55 5.12. Republic of Moldova.............................................................................................................. 57 5.13. Montenegro ........................................................................................................................... 60 5.14. North Macedonia .................................................................................................................. 62 5.15. Romania ................................................................................................................................. 64 5.16. Slovenia ................................................................................................................................. 74 5.17. Turkey .................................................................................................................................... 78 5.18. Ukraine .................................................................................................................................. 87 6. Recommendations for improvements to the existing observational networks supporting SEE- MHEWS-A .............................................................................................................................................. 92 7. Conclusions .................................................................................................................................... 95 List of abbreviations AMDAR – Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay ARSO – Agencija Republike Slovenije za okolje (Slovenian Environment Agency) AWS – Automatic Weather Station BiH – Bosnia and Herzegovina BOBER – Better Observation for Better Environment Response CBS – Commission for Basic Systems DB – Database DHMZ – Državni hidrometeorološki zavod (Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service) DRM – Disaster Risk Management EUCOS – EUMETNET Composite Observing System EUMETNET – European Meteorological Services Network FHMI – Federal Hydrometeorological Institute (Bosnia and Herzegovina) GFDRR – Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery GOS – Global Observing System GPRS – General Packet Radio Service GPS – Global Positioning System IGEWE – Institute of GeoSciences Energy Water and Environment (Albania) IHMS – Institute for Hydrometeorology and Seismology of Montenegro IMS – Israel Meteorological Service INCA – Integrated Nowcasting Comprehensive Analysis IPA – Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance ISO/IEC – International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission METAR – Format for weather information predominantly from airports NMHS – National Meteorological and Hydrorological Service NWP – Numerical Weather Prediction OMSZ – Országos Meteorológiai Szolgálat (Hungarian Meteorological Service) OSCAR – Observing Systems Capability Analysis and Review Tool PBL – Planetary Boundary Layer QC – Quality Control RA – Regional Association RHMS – Republic Hydrometeorological Service RIC – Regional Instrument Centre RMS – Root Mean Square (standard deviation) RNMA – Romanian National Meteorological Administration RRR – Rolling Review of Requirements RS – Republika Srpska (Entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina) SEE-MHEWS-A – South-East European Multi-hazard Early Warning Advisory System SHS – State Hydrometeorological Institute of Moldova SOG – Statements of Guidance SYNOP – Numerical code used for reporting weather observations made by manned and automated surface weather stations TSMS – Turkish State Meteorological Service UHMC – Український гідрометеорологічний центр (Ukrainian Hydrometorological Center) UHMR – Управа за хидрометеоролошки работи (Hydrometeorological Service - Republic of North Macedonia) USAID – United States Agency for International Development UTC – Coordinated Universal Time WB – World Bank WIGOS – WMO Integrated Global Observing System WIS – WMO Information System WMO – World Meteorological Organization ZAMG – Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik (National Meteorological Service of Austria) 1. SUMMARY 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. As part of the activities of the 2nd phase of the SEE-MHEWS-A project, the Hungarian Meteorological Service was tasked to prepare the observational requirements for the project, based on the WMO Rolling Review of Requirements (RRR) and project objectives and recommendations for improvements to the existing observational networks supporting SEE-MHEWS-A. This document collected information on the capability of the meteorological monitoring networks of the project partners. The 17 countries have 18 National Meteorological and/or Hydrometeorological Services (NMHSs) since Bosnia and Herzegovina has two separate institutions in entity level. The countries are located in the Central and South-East Europe, as well as in the Middle East in accordance with the Regional Association VI (RA VI) of the WMO. Automation of the surface observations is in progress in the region with the exemption of Ukraine, where the traditional manned stations produce measurements every three hours. The networks are rather dense in the EU Member States as well as in Israel and Turkey, although they cannot meet all the threshold observing requirements listed in the Table 1 of this report. Some NHMSs were forced to abandon