1. WMO 3.3 Summary of regional reports on the exchange of weather radar data, highlighting progress, plans and challenges CBS/OPAG-IOS Workshop on Radar Data Exchange Exeter, UK, 24-26 April 2013 Daniel Michelson, SMHI, Sweden

2. WMO Guidance: INF3.1 Data exchange practices  WHAT? Polar data and/or products More radar than other non-Res 40 obs data? Growth trend (more data being exchanged)?  WHERE? Between/among which countries?  HOW (technical)? File format(s) Exchange mechanisms, e.g. FTP, GTS, other

3. WMO Guidance: INF3.1 Data exchange practices  HOW (political)? Bilateral / multilateral agreement? Wider political framework? Capacity building within the region? Does Resolution 25 help? What is the nature of existing data exchange? How prepared are we for global data exchange?

4. Template summary table WHERE?WHAT?HOW? CountriesPolarProductsFormatCommsAgreement Countries denoted by top-level domain.

5. RA I – Africa WHERE?WHAT?HOW? CountriesPolarProductsFormatCommsAgreement BW, MZ, ZAZ inRegional composites out TITAN MoU Centralized

6. RA II – Asia WHERE?WHAT?HOW? CountriesPolarProductsFormatCommsAgreement CN – HKZ, V, WCompositePolar: WSR- 88D Composite: ? WIS using “MSTP special line” Bilateral Guangdong – HK. Centralized compositing. CN – MO CN – KR5 productsGIFSpecial ”GTS” lineBilateral CN –> KP“several”Bilateral, one-way CN – TWCompositesTo be considered

7. RA III – South America  Brazil Many radars and many owners/operators, some of which are commercial. Most data available in TITAN format. Some in UF, PNG, BUFR, netCDF, industrial.  Argentina: several radars, some providing data in TITAN format, others using proprietary industrial formats (EDGE, MURAN, IRIS, Rainbow)  Elsewhere: industrial formats  Big challenges to coordinate domestic data flow.  International exchange? (Data from BR and PY)

8. RA IV – North and Central America, Caribbean WHERE?WHAT?HOW? CountriesPolarProductsFormatCommsAgreement CA – US“native” CA: IRIS US: L2, L3, L4 GTS FTP – pull Bilateral AN – SXAN: IRIS CU - USCompositeUS L4PushTo NWS (Hurricane Center) BB, BZ, GF, TT (more?) BUFRPlannedEC Caribbean radar project – multilateral MoU BS, CU, PR ?(On BS website)

9. RA V – South-West Pacific WHERE?WHAT?HOW? CountriesPolarProductsFormatCommsAgreement AU – NZyes “raw” “graphics” Bilateral MY – SGBUFRBilateral

10. RA VI – Europe WHERE?WHAT?HOW? CountriesPolarProductsFormatCommsAgreement BE, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, HR, IE, IS, NL, NO, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SI, SK, UK … Z, VZ composite R composite RR-1hr composite ODIM_H5 ODIM_BUFR FTP GTS EUMETNET OPERA – centralized through “Odyssey” AT, CH, CZ, DE, HR, PL, SI, SK Z CAPPIs in Z composites out BUFRGTSCERAD – centralized Vertical wind profilesBUFRGTSEUMETNET CWINDE

11. RA VI – Europe (continued) WHERE?WHAT?HOW? CountriesPolarProductsFormatCommsAgreement DK, EE, FI, LV, NO, SE Z Pseudo- CAPPI Vertical wind profiles HDF5 – COST 717 model NORDRAD – “persistent HTTP”, XML headers, “notify-pull” NORDRAD Cooperation Agreement: multilateral, decentralized BY, DK, DE, EE, FI, LT, LV, NO, PL, SE, UA T, Z, V, W Dual-pol moments ODIM_H5BALTRAD – HTTP, own HTML headers, “subscribe-push”, WIS connectivity BALTRAD Cooperation Agreement: multilateral, decentralized Both BALTRAD and OPERA incorporate centralized QC in their data processing chains.

12. OPERA exchange matrix Version: 3 January 2013 Updated regularly

13. Existing exchange between regions? Yes:  NCEP Stage IV surface rain composites from NEXRAD in GRIB format (RA IV) used by ECMWF (RA VI)  EC Caribbean (RA IV) radar project includes GF (RA III) Potentially yes:  RA II and V: pursuing framework under the umbrella of ASEAN

14. Important issues to be discussed  Network load balancing between site and center (domestic data transmission) ray-by-ray.  Standard file format required for managing polarimetric data. Vital that the standard is adhered to.  Data/products should be defined by levels (I-III) for exchange.  WMO experts should define harmonized QC methods which are then applied by members (RQQI?).

15. Summary – progress  National and regional weather radar networks have developed relatively recently; coverage over land becoming more complete, but still large gaps.  Polarimetric radar technology is being phased into operational networks globally.  Holistic QC chains are emerging in some places, but are still in their infancy.  Harmonized data representation proven possible in a large heterogeneous network (ODIM).

16. Summary – plans  National networks to continue to develop and improve.  Regional networks to evolve.  Increased data availability should help clarify/refine user requirements, e.g. NWP, hydrology, etc.

17. Summary – challenges  Surface-based scanning weather radar will always have irregular spatial coverage.  Unlike e.g. satellite data, radar data are much more heterogeneous due to different drivers, manufacturers, operators, configurations, data representations, etc.  Political issues: data availability, agreement on e.g. data exchange model, commerical.  Access to sufficient network bandwidth supporting exchange.

18. www.wmo.int Thank you for your attention Daniel Michelson Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute Norrköping, Sweden daniel.michelson@smhi.se