The 12th Workshop on Meteorological Operational Systems took place at ECMWF from 2 to 6 November 2009.
Description
This year there was a strong focus on the role of observations. The workshop reviewed the state of the art of observation handling in meteorological operational systems and addressed future trends in the role of observations in verification of medium-range forecast products, data management and meteorological visualisations on workstations.
Use and interpretation of medium and extended range forecast guidance
The ECMWF forecasting system provides users with operational forecast guidance twice daily for the medium range, including a high-resolution deterministic forecast run at 25 km resolution (T799) and an Ensemble Prediction System (EPS) run at 50 km (T399). In March 2008, the EPS and monthly forecast systems were merged, using a coupled atmosphere-ocean system from day 10 onwards, extending the EPS range to 30 days once a week. The portion beyond 10 days is run at 80 km resolution (T255), to 15 days twice daily and to 30 days from 00 UTC each Thursday. ECMWF also provides longer-range predictions, providing operational forecasts once a month out to seven months. A new seasonal forecasting system was implemented in spring 2007. Having migrated the forecast systems to a new computer system in the spring 2009, it is planned that the resolution of most components will be upgraded by the end of this year: the deterministic forecast system to 15 km and the EPS to 30 km (50 km beyond 10 days).
These changes to the forecasting systems will be presented at the workshop, together with developments in the range of products provided by the Centre. There will be a special focus on tools and products for observation monitoring, and on the use of observations in verification of rare events. It is expected that users of the ECMWF forecasts will report on their approach to medium and extended range weather forecasting, including the use and application of ECMWF products. It is planned to address the issue of the role of observations in the adaptation and verification of forecast products for surface weather in a working group, and contributions from other operational centres addressing, in particular, experience in this area and the availability of relevant observational data sets will be welcome.
Operational data management systems
Managing the large amount of available observational data, in particular from automatic stations, radar and satellite can be challenging: the data are heterogeneous by nature, the volumes involved are increasingly growing, and the number of individual data items is very large and needs to be processed in real time. Different applications require very different handling of observational datasets as well as different data format and organisation.
This workshop provides an opportunity to share experiences on the management of observation, from collection to applications, such as climatology studies or use by NWP systems. Discussions could cover, but should not be limited to the following topics:
- Exchange and distribution of observations
- Cataloguing and discovery
- Data models and formats
- Quality control, metadata and annotations
- Databases and archives, retrieval facilities
- Processing software and data mining tools
Meteorological visualisation applications
The amount of data, e.g. satellite observations or high resolution model data, expected to be manipulated and visualised by a modern meteorological workstation is increasing rapidly. It becomes difficult to visualise all this data in simple and intuitive ways. The rendering can become slow, and the visualisation unclear or misleading due to the high degree of over-plotting of neighbouring points.
This workshop:
- reviewed the possibilities to manage, combine and analyse high-volume data
- considered the visualisation of large-volume information on a limited-size screen display
- examined the available techniques, such as sampling, clustering and hierarchical presentation, to reduce the size of the data while maintaining the level of visual information
- investigated the impact of the graphics format used
New meteorological visualisation applications and updates to existing applications were presented and demonstrated at an exhibition.
Programme
Presentations
| Monday 2 November | |
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Session 1: Use and interpretation of medium and extended range forecast guidance |
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ECMWF's forecast system developments Erik Andersson (ECMWF) |
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Oceanic Cyclone Analysis and Forecasting at the NCEP/Ocean Prediction Center: The role of observations and progress in medium range forecasting James Clark (NOAA/National Weather Service/NCEP/Ocean Prediction Center) |
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Use of ECMWF products at Meteo-France Mireille Mayoka (Meteo-France) |
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Developments in ensemble prediction at the Met Office Richard Swinbank (Met Office) |
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The NWP system at DWD - Migration from IBM to NEC SX-9 and recent developments of the NWP system Thomas Hanisch (DWD) |
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New applications using real-time observations and ECMWF model data Wim van den Berg (Meteo Consult) |
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Probabilistic modelling of extreme wind speeds from ensemble forecasts for the generation of prewarnings at RMI Pascal Maillier (Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium) |
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Observations and their importance in the verification process: View of the Joint Working Group on Forecast Verification Method Research Anna Ghelli (ECMWF) |
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Observational needs for verification Clive Wilson (Met Office) |
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| Tuesday 3 November | |
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Session 2: Operational data management systems |
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GRIB API. A database driven decoding library Enrico Fucile/Cristian Codorean (ECMWF) |
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The future of satellite product dissemination and formats Lothar Wolf (EUMETSAT) |
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SKY - the new data management system at Deutscher Wetterdienst Harald Lemmin (DWD) |
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The Hong Kong Observatory's Operational Data Management System Yuen Chung Cheng (Hong Kong Observatory) |
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The progress of FengYun series satellite data assimilation at CMA Hua Zhang (China Meteorological Administration) |
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Managing large volumes of environmental data: the work of the Reading eScience Centre Alastair Gemmell (University of Reading) |
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Session 1: Use and interpretation of medium and extended range forecast guidance |
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Processing observations for NWP at the Met Office: current practice and future plans Rick Rawlins (Met Office) |
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Towards a unified observations monitoring system Mohamed Dahoui (ECMWF) |
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EUCOS, status of operational networks and future development plans Stefan Klink (DWD) |
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Comprehensive study of the calibrated EPS forecasts Istvan Ihasz (Hungarian Meteorological Service) |
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| Wednesday 4 November | |
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Session 3: Meteorological visualisation applications |
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Magics++ - meteorological graphics library generating weather maps and graphs for the web Sylvie Lamy-Thepaut |
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Metview 4: Answering new challenges of increasing volumes of data Sandor Kertesz (ECMWF) |
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The use of numerical products for weather and seasonal forecasts at INPE/CPTEC Jose Aravequia (CPTEC) |
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SYNERGIE updates and plans Antoine Lasserre-Bigorry (Meteo-France) |
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NinJo - System overview and usage for aviation meteorology at DWD Michael Rohn/Stephan Schmidt (DWD) |
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Session 1: Use and interpretation of medium and extended range forecast guidance |
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Limited-area ensemble activities at ARPA-SIMC: present status and future plans for the COSMO-LEPS system Andrea Montani (ARPA-SIMC) |
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ODB (Observational DataBase) and its usage at ECMWF Anne Fouilloux (ECMWF) |
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Use of observation in operational HIRLAM and joint monitoring and model inter- comparison Xiaohua Yang (Danish Meteorological Institute) |
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| Thursday 5 November | |
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Session 3: Meteorological visualisation applications |
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NAWIPS migration to AWIPS2: Overview and data display challenges Scott Jacobs (NOAA/NWS/NCEP) |
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OGC Met Ocean Domain Working Group progress report Marie-Francoise Voidrot (Meteo-France) |
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Visualisation tools at KNMI Kees Lemcke (KNMI) |
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Weather Radar Data Services at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center Stephen Del Greco (NOAA's National Climatic Data Center) |
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Using Visual Weather to redefine the weather forecasting in web-enabled environments Michal Weis (IBL Software Engineering) |
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Web re-engineering project Baudouin Raoult (ECMWF) |
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Forecast product development Tim Hewson (ECMWF) |
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Forecast inconsistencies - how often do forecast jumps occur in the models? Ervin Zsoter (Hungarian Meteorological Service) |
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| Friday 6 November | |
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New observations archive at SMHI Tomas Karlsson (SMHI) |
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ICARE Data and Services Center on aerosols, clouds and water cycle: Computing facility and user interfaces Loredana Fosca (ICARE CCTD) |
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Observation feedback archiving in MARS Piotr Kuchta (ECMWF) |
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Working groups
| Working group 1: Use and interpretation of medium and extended range forecast guidance | |
| Working group 2: Data management and visualisation | - |
Proceedings
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ECMWF's forecast system developments E Andersson |
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The Hong Kong Observatory's operational data management systems Y Cheng |
|
|
Oceanic cyclone analysis and forecasting at the NCEP/Ocean Prediction Center: The role of observations and progress in medium range forecasting J Clark |
|
|
Towards a unified observations monitoring system M Dahoui |
|
|
ODB (Observational DataBase) and its usage at ECMWF A Fouilloux |
|
|
GRIB API. A database driven decoding library E Fucile |
|
|
Managing large volumes of environmental data: the work of the Reading e-Science Centre A Gemmell |
|
|
Observations and their importance in the verification process: View of the Joint Working Group on Forecast Verification Method Research A Ghelli |
|
|
The NWP system at DWD - Migration from IBM to NEC SX-9 and recent developments of the NWP system T Hanisch |
|
|
Forecast product development T Hewson |
|
|
Comprehensive study of the calibrated EPS forecasts I Ihasz |
|
|
NAWIPS migration to AWIPS2: Overview and data display challenges S Jacobs |
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|
Metview 4: Answering new challenges of increasing volumes of data S Kertesz |
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Observation feedback archiving in MARS P Kuchta |
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Magics++ - meteorological graphics library generating weather maps and graphs for the web S Lamy-Thepaut |
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Visualisation tools at KNMI K Lemcke |
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Probabilistic modelling of extreme wind speeds from ensemble forecasts for the generation of prewarnings at the RMI P Mailier |
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Limited-area ensemble activities at ARPA-SIMC: present status and future plans for the COSMO-LEPS system A Montani |
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Web re-engineering project B Raoult |
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Processing observations for NWP at the Met Office: current practice and future plans Rawlins |
|
|
NinJo - System overview and usage for aviation meteorology at DWD M Rohn |
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|
New applications using real-time observations and ECMWF model data W Van den Berg |
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Observational needs for verification C Wilson |
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Joint HIRLAM operational model inter-comparison and monitoring interface X Yang |
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Forecast inconsistencies - how often do forecast jumps occur in the models? E Zsoter |
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