Severe Weather Forecasting Demonstration Project (SWFDP) Peter Chen Chief, Data-Processing and Forecasting Systems Division Weather and Disaster Risk Reduction Services Department Internal Briefing Geneva 25 October 2012

Numerical simulations of the atmosphere “In general, the public is not aware that our daily weather forecasts start out as initial value problems on the major national weather services supercomputers. Numerical weather prediction provides the basic guidance for weather forecasting beyond the first few hours.” - Eugenia Kalnay (2003) - From: “Atmospheric Modeling, Data Assimilation and predictability” Cambridge University Press, 2003, 5th printing 2009

Severe Weather Forecasting Demonstration Project (SWFDP) WMO Vision for improving severe weather forecasting and warning services in developing countries “NMHSs in developing countries are able to implement and maintain reliable and effective routine forecasting and severe weather warning programmes through enhanced use of NWP products and delivery of timely and authoritative forecasts and early warnings, thereby contributing to reducing the risk of disasters from natural hazards.” (World Meteorological Congress, 2007 and 2011) WMO Strategic Priorities Disaster Risk Reduction Capacity Development Climate change adaptation

Severe Weather Forecasting Demonstration Project (SWFDP) WMO SWFDP Main Goals Improve Severe Weather Forecasting Improve lead-time of Warnings Improve interaction of NMHSs with users: media, disaster management, civil protection authorities SWFDP Regional Subprojects Southern Africa (ongoing; 16 countries; RSMC Pretoria, RSMC La Réunion) Southwest Pacific Islands (ongoing; 9 Island States; RSMC Wellington, RSMC Fiji) Eastern Africa (ongoing, 6 countries; RSMC Nairobi, RFSC Dar) Southeast Asia (in development, 4 countries) Bay of Bengal (in development, 6 countries)

SWFDP Cascading Forecasting Process –Global NWP centres to provide available NWP and EPS products, including in the form of probabilities, cut to the project window frame; –Regional centres to interpret information received from global NWP centres, prepare daily guidance products (out to day-5) for NMCs, run limited-area model to refine products, maintain RSMC Web site, liaise with the participating NMCs; –NMCs to issue alerts, advisories, severe weather warnings; to liaise with Disaster Management, and to contribute feedback and evaluation of the project; –NMCs have access to all products, and maintained responsibility and authority over national warnings and services. 5 Global Centers Disaster Management Centres NMCsRSMC Pretoria

6 SWFDP – Southern Africa 16 countries, RSMC Pretoria, RSMC La Réunion, Met Office UK, NCEP USA, ECMWF RSMC Pretoria Webportal Since 2006

RSMC analysis forecast information Guidance every day for the next 5 days Hazards: heavy rain, strong wind, high seas and swell, severe winter weather Guidance info made available through dedicated Webpage to NMCs Links to RSMC La Réunion TC forecasting SWFDP Guidance Products from RSMC Pretoria

SWFDP Southwest Pacific - 9 Island States, RSMC Wellington, RSMC Nadi - ECMWF, Met Office UK, NWS/USA, ABoM RSMC Wellington Since 2009

SWFDP – Eastern Africa – Lake Victoria (status/progress) WMO Focus on: Strong winds Heavy precipitation Hazardous waves (Indian Ocean and Lake Victoria) Dry spells Users: general public, disaster management, media, agriculture and fisheries Domains: 5E – 55E; 30N – 25S (for monitoring, analyzing, predicting and verifying the various severe weather events) 31E – 36E; 2N – 4S (for the Lake Victoria) Global Centres: ECMWF, UKMO, NOAA/NCEP (NWP guidance material) MSG satellite products (EUMETSat products) Regional Centre: RSMC Nairobi, supported by TMA, UKMO and DWD National Met. Centres: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and Ethiopia Started September 2011

SWFDP – Eastern Africa 6 countries, RSMC Nairobi, RFSC Dar-es-Salaam, Met Office UK, NCEP USA, ECMWF, DWD RSMCNairobi Since 2011 RFSC Dar-es-Salaam since 2011

SWFDP-Eastern Africa Guidance from RSMC Nairobi and Regional Centre Dar-es-Salaam

Proposed SWFDP – Southeast Asia WMO SWFDP – Southeast Asia status/progress Project develop in progress (draft Implementation Plan available at: Reports/documents/Report_SWFDP-SeA_IP_Sep2010.pdf) Reports/documents/Report_SWFDP-SeA_IP_Sep2010.pdf Focus on strong winds and heavy precipitation (mainly TC-related) and associated hazards (e.g. flooding, landslides, storm surges, swell) Domain: 10°S, 40°N, 80°E and 140°E Global Centres: CMA, JMA and KMA (NWP guidance material, satellite products) Regional Centres: Viet Nam (Regional Forecast Support), RSMC Tokyo and RSMC New Delhi (TC forecasting support), and HKO (training and technical support) NMCs: Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam Start-up awaiting establishment of RFSC Ha Noi (2013?)

SWFDP – Bay of Bengal Focus: Coastal communities and activities Bangladesh India Maldives Myanmar Sri Lanka Thailand Bhutan (later) Nepal (later) Afghanistan (later) Pakistan (later) Severe Weather from TCs, severe thunderstorms and monsoon: Heavy precipitation, Strong winds Large waves / swell, Storm Surge Improved severe weather forecasting (GDPFS), warning services to disaster management (PWS) and with agriculture (AgMet) 40E – 125 E 50 N – 10 S

SWFDP links and synergies Regional Centre Global Centres RSMCs-TC Global NWP/EPS and Sat-based products TC Guidance Products (risk/probability) GDPFS National Met Centres (Forecast D / D+5; Bulletins) SMS; Weather Radio Systems; Public Web; etc. PWS Disaster Management and Civil Protection Specific Communication Systems Media ; etc. Radio; TV Flash Flood Guidance HWR Disaster Management and Civil Protection Specific Communication Systems General Public WWRP Research Projects Satellite Imagery and Tools WMO SP General Public and spec. users (Agriculture, Fisheries, Marine Safety, Aviation, etc.) Tailored Forecasting Products for Specialized Applications AgM, MMO, AeM, etc. Specific Comm. Systems

SWFDP – improving forecasts and warnings Severe weather: heavy rain, strong winds, forecast range: up to day-5 (increased lead-time) Forecasting (GDPFS), warning services (PWS), High-impact focus (flash-flooding, damaging winds, near-shore damaging waves, landslides); Increase synergy with Tropical Cyclone Programme (TCP) Forecast Verification (guidance, forecasts, warnings) Managed phase-in other developments (“cascade” to applications, promising R&D outputs) Training for forecasters, and disaster managers Technological gaps: –Tropical convection, rapid on-set, localized events –Lack of forecasting tools in the very-short-range (< 12h) –Little or no radar coverage, few real-time observations –Internet-based

End Result of a SWFDP The end result of SWFDP is to improve warnings, forecasts and delivering services to: –Save lives –Protect properties –Help people make better decisions with the help of science and technology Serving communities of users!

PWS Component of SWFDP Focus: Use the tools/skills/techniques of improved forecasting Address: How to apply those tools to deliver warnings and forecast services to identified user groups These two components together are indispensible to ensure SWFDP achieves its objectives

Challenges for PWS Forecasting component easier for staff:  Familiar environment of forecast office  Education and Training in Forecasting PWS component more difficult:  Requires knowledge and skills not taught  Engagement with users: environment often not familiar or even hostile  Requires understanding others’ points of view and demands: often unfamiliar

Lessons Learnt from SWFDP Majority of participating NMSs have made efforts to implement the feedback and evaluation for PWS Major drawback: NMS expectation for automatic feedback from users Major lesson learnt: Need to be proactive to get feedback PWS guidance materials can assist in building effective relationships

Lessons Learnt from SWFDP Systematic documentation of user interactions to indicate evolution Baseline Surveys: to be conducted at the beginning of the project Continue surveys to measure improvement over time Evaluation possible if improvements can be measured.

SWFDP – Cooperating with Research … incorporating promising research outputs into real-time SWFDP demonstrations … WWRP GIFS - TIGGE - Tropical Cyclone track; extreme events (wind, precip, temps; soon to be near-real- time) Forecast Verification Research (e.g. SWFDP – Eastern Africa) Nowcasting Research – very short-range forecasting (< 12h; possibly SWFDP-SeAsia, SWFDP-Eastern Africa) Sub-seasonal forecasting (e.g. SWFDP-Eastern Africa) Public weather services & DRR, with SERA

GIFS products for SWFDP (MRI-JMA) SWFDP: - Southern Africa - Eastern Africa - Southwest Pacific - Southeast Asia

Looking Ahead Continuous Development Phase “Phase 4” Establishing SWFDP Project Office, and Trust Fund at WMO National SWFDP Implementation Plans for least capacity countries Maintaining Project-critical components (RFSCs, Training, warning services) Consider new projects: 8-10 regional projects, up to 100 WMO Members, including many LDCs Revitalizing GDPFS and its RSMCs Building Weather Warning Services for Members Ultimate Goal: Establishing a National Severe Weather Warnings Programme for every Member of WMO

Phase 4 of SWFDP – Southern Africa (transition ) MASA/SADC very supportive Project management from CBS to SADC/MASA; management team is maintained Regional Phase4 Implementation Plan, “RP4IP” - draft completed (July 2011) 2012 activities in the region have continued to function under Phase 4 as before in all respects Coordinating with Flash Flood Guidance, Storm Surge Watch Resources/funding needed: training, enhancements at RSMC Website, interactions with users of warning services, especially for least capacity NMHSs National SWFDP implementation plans

Tell us how to fish - Show us how to fish - Fish with us “ … next decade will continue to bring improvements, especially in … detailed short-range forecasts, using storm-scale models able to provide skillful predictions of severe weather; … “… improvement in the usefulness of medium-range forecasts, especially through use of ensemble forecasting;” - Eugenia Kalnay (2009) SWFDP – paving the way for the future

SWFDP - Improving severe weather forecasting and warning services Thank you! DPFS: Peter Chen Alice Soares PWS: Haleh Kootval Sam Muchemi AgMet: Robert Stefanski Jose Camacho “Spending on improving weather forecasting and sharing data have high returns.” Natural Hazards UnNatural Disasters – The Economics of Effective Preveniton,WB, UN (2011)