Design of CAP products and CAP applications (status report)

2 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Content Warning Management System of Deutscher Wetterdienst  Public warnings  Special warnings  CAP products of DWD Using CAP  by DWD  by DWD customers Design- and technical aspects  Benefits of CAP documents  Profiling  Open issues  Best practices (CAP and meteorology)

3 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Warning Management System of Deutscher Wetterdienst  DWD Law calls for "the issuance of official warnings of weather phenomena that could become a danger for public safety and order".  DWD operates a three-tiered warning management system (in time dimension)  it has five risk levels  warning management system is co-ordinated with disaster management of the federal states, which in Germany are responsible for disaster management Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) is a federal authority under the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs, established in response to the Law on the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD Law).

4 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Warning Management System of Deutscher Wetterdienst DWD likewise issues warnings  to safeguard marine shipping and the sea coasts  against extreme heat and UV radiation (Dep. Human Biometeorology)  Aviation warnings (Dep. Aeronautical Meteorology) DWD publishes a forest fire danger index (Dep. Agrometeorology) Flood forecasting is the responsibility of the federal states where specific flood response centres are operated. Their forecasts rely on the meteorological information and forecasts supplied by DWD.

5 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Warning Management System of Deutscher Wetterdienst The three levels of warning management system are:  Weekly Weather Hazard Forecast: following 2 to 7 days probability of occurence of severe weather based on numerical models  Severe Weather Watch: h hazardous weather phenomena is very likely; offered for regions  Warning: ~ h for different weather phenomena issued no more than 12 hours before the arrival of the warning event

6 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Warning Management System of Deutscher Wetterdienst Geographical structures  rural districts (in vertical: 200m steps), ca. 400 districts  great lakes (i.e. lake Bodensee)  some parts of rural districts (i.e. seasides, mountain areas)

7 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Providing channels for warnings :  dissemination via Internet fax-on-demand services text messages in specific cases, also by telephone ftp server (for download by customers)  general public is informed over the Internet (  closed online user groups (i.e. FeWIS for fire brigades; SWIS for winter maintenance service)  voluntary support of radio and television companies ( There is no obligation on radio stations to disseminate the DWD's warnings on television and radio because there are no legal regulations applicable to this area. ) Warning Management System of Deutscher Wetterdienst

8 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Closed online user groups SWIS (Road Weather Information System)  provides support for winter maintenance service management  delivers all warning information in special form for users  provides information about road conditions, forecasts of road conditions Warning Management System of Deutscher Wetterdienst

9 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Closed online user groups FeWIS (Weather Information System for Fire Brigades )  targeted at the needs of professional fire services  delivers a warning overview, a warning situation report, severe weather watches and district-related warnings  provides many other types of information (weather radar, satellite loops, supplementary information about temperatures, precipitation, wind peaks, frost penetration depths, snow depths, forecast texts) Warning Management System of Deutscher Wetterdienst

10 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 New service: optimized visualisation of warning situation for mobile phones (left) for websites of users (right) Warning Management System of Deutscher Wetterdienst

11 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Warning Management System of Deutscher Wetterdienst Warning criteria  same criteria for whole Germany  defined in collaboration with national authorities for disaster management, based on evaluation of climate data  different warning levels Weather phenomena Violent gusts Hurricane-force gusts Extreme hurricane-force gusts Severe thunderstorm Intense heavy rainfall Extremely intense heavy rainfall Strong continuous rain Extremely strong continuous rain Heavy snowfall Extremely heavy snowfall Heavy snowdrifts Black ice Heavy thaw Wind gusts Storm gusts Violent storm gusts Thunderstorm Heavy rainfall Continuous rain Snowfall Snowdrifts Slippery roads Fog Frost Severe frost Warning level Expected weather conditionsColour Official warning of particularly extreme and severe weather Extremely dangerous weather conditionsDark red Official severe weather warning Very dangerous weather conditionsRed Official warning of significant weather Dangerous weather conditionsOchre Official weather warningPossibility of weather-related risksYellow No warningNo weather-related risksBlue

12 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Weather Warning Meteorological phenomenontresholdsName wind in ca. 10 m above free area ≥ 50 km/hWind gusts thunderstormElectric discharge, also related with wind gustsThunderstorm light snowfall in heights over 800 m: individual decision up to 5 cm in 6 hours up to 10 cm in 12 hours Snowfall slicknesscaused by hoarfrost, snow cover, freezing moisture Slickness frostwidespread or continuing temperatures below freezing point; between and each year In heights below 800 m Frost fogwidespread visibility below 150 mFog

13 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Warning of significant weather Meteorological phenomenontresholdsName wind in ca. 10 m above free area km/h Storm gusts km/h Heavy storm gusts thunderstorm related with storm gusts, heavy storm gusts, heavy rain or hail Thunderstorm heavy rain l/m 2 in 1 hour l/m 2 in 6 hours Heavy rain continuous rain l/m 2 in 12 hours l/m 2 in 24 hours l/m 2 in 48 hours. Continuous rain Snowfall in heights over 800 m: individual decision 5-10 cm in 6 hours cm in 12 hours over 800 m: up to 30 cm in 12 hours. snowfall Snowdrift in heights over 800 m: individual decision fresh snow or snow cover cm and wind gusts (39 km/h bis 65 km/h) snowdrifts slickness temporary or local, caused by freezing rain or drizzel, also freezing moisture with considerable traffic disturbance slickness frost Widespread or continuing temperature ≤ -10 ° C, In heights below 800 m Severe frost thaw snow cover, raising temperature and rain cause water cumulative flows: l/m² in 12 hours l/m² in 24 hours l/m² in 48 hours thaw

14 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Warning of severe weather and particulary extreme and severe weather (I) Meteorological phenomenontresholdsName wind in ca. 10 m above free area km/h Violent gusts ab 120 km/h Hurricane-force gusts widespread more than140 km/h Extreme urricane- force gusts very strong convective incident Thunderstorm with hail, intense heavy rain, violent or hurricane-force gusts or local tornados It is enough when only one of the attendent weather phenomena reaches the treshold of severe weather. hail with a diameter > 1,5 cm Severe thunderstorm intense heavy rain l/m 2 in 1 hour l/m 2 in 6 hours Intense heavy rain >40 l/m 2 in 1 hours >60 l/m 2 in 6 hours Extremely intense heavy rain strong continuous rain >40 l/m 2 in 12 hours >50 l/m 2 in 24 hours >60 l/m 2 in 48 hours Strong continuous rain verbreitet >70 l/m 2 in 12 hours >80 l/m 2 in 24 hours >90 l/m 2 in 48 hours Extremely strong continuous rain

15 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Warning of severe weather and particulary extreme and severe weather (II) Meteorological phenomenontresholdsName snowfall in heights over 800 m: individual decision >10 cm in 6 hours >15 cm in 12 hours in heights over 800 m: >30 cm in 12 hours Heavy snowfall widespread >25 cm in 12 hours in heights over 800 m: >50 cm in 12 hours Extremely heavy snowfall snowdrift in heights over 800 m: individual decision fresh snow or snow cover 10 bis 25 cm and storm gusts or more (> 65 km/h) Heavy snowdrifts fresh snow or snow cover> 25 cm and storm gusts or more (ab 65 km/h) Extremely heavy snowdrifts black icewidespread black iceBlack ice thawsnow cover, raising temperature and rain cause water cumulative flows: > 40 l/m² in 12 hours > 50 l/m² in 24 hours > 60 l/m² in 48 hours Heavy thaw

16 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 CAP products of DWD  Public warning products as CAP XML documents (format UTF-8, CAP version 1.2)  Typical textbased warnings (format (ia5, txt)) are transformed into CAP version 1.2  Up to different products (depending on warning situation)  Warning status of Germany as one CAP document AND Warning status of Germany as one Zip-Container of different CAP documents  published every 5 minutes  Including geographic details of warning areas (e.g. polygons)  an alternative product (including only geo-references) is scheduled  CAP aviation products  Windsharing warning as CAP document

17 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Using CAP – by DWD (CAP warnings in GeoMapViewer) Visualization of CAP – File in GeoMapViewer Contextmenu

18 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Using CAP – by DWD (GeoWebservice: dwd_alert)

19 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Using CAP – by DWD customers (teletext) Blue, yellow, ochre, red and violet points are controlled by CAP

20 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Design and technical aspects  Benefits of CAP documents  Validation and Profiling  Open issues  Best practices

21 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Benefits of CAP documents CAP – a powerful format of alerts and warnings:  Clear strukture  Good relation between structure and content  Well-established international standard Useful format not only of alerts and warnings

22 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Validation and profiling  Validation against xml schema (e.g. OASIS (CAP-v1.2.xsd))  Basic validation (independent of alerting scope)  Weakly restrictions for the content of most of xml tags  Semanic checks are impossible (unable to check relations between content of different xml tags).  Profiling against own xml schema ( v1.8.xsd, documentation: )  Based on official xml schema (OASIS, CAP-v1.2.xsd)  Stronger restrictions for the content of relevant xml tags (e.g. basic type „string“ enumeration of strings)  Semanic checks are impossible (unable to check relations between content of different xml tags).  Profiling against a combination of official xml schema AND own „schematron roles“  „two step“-validation (1. step: validation against OASIS, CAP-v1.2.xsd, 2. step: check against own schematron roles)  Semanic checks are possible.  Schematron – ISO standard since 2006

23 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Open issues (Relation CAP / ISO 19xxx: Measure)  CAP: units unsolved  ISO19xxx: range of values (from.. to..) and thresholds (>.. or <..) unsolved

24 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Open issues (Proposals)  Workaround (DWD / MeteoAlarm)  Proposal: optional attribute  compliant to current CAP-schema

25 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Open issues (CAP: geographic Objects)  CAP: Information about an area:  Useful area defination But:  Bounding box (unsupported)  Altitude and ceiling only in feed (not compliant to German / European law)

26 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Open issues (ISO19XXX: geographic Objects)

27 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Open issues (Proposals)  Workaround (DWD / MeteoAlarm):  Conversion into feed  Proposal: optional attribute  compliant to current CAP-schema Without optional attribute  feet With optional attribute  e.g. meter

28 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Design and technical aspects (best practices)  Best practices should be useful  Recommendations for identifiers  Recommendations for meteorological measurements  Recommendations for profiling / validation

29 Petra Fechner, Siegfried Fechner – DWD Geneva, April 2013 Contacts Petra Fechner Department WV 11 (Basic Forecasts) Siegfried Fechner Department TI 15 ( Systems and Operations ) Frankfurter Strasse 135 D Offenbach Fone.:+49 (69) Fax:+49 (69) Fone.:+49 (69) Fax:+49 (69)