WORDS INTO ACTIONS

Voluntary Cooperation Programme

In April 2018, in Luosto, Finland gathered the 10 Voluntary Cooperation Programme's partners into an Informal Planning Meeting (IPM), that reviewed the VCP activities in 2017 as well as the bilateral assistance made by IPM members and discussed the future scope of the Programme. Relevant reports on socio-economic studies, public-private engagement, and WMO development partnerships were presented at the meeting.

Read more HERE.  

The SUB-REGIONAL PLATFORM ON DISASTER RISK REDUCTION

for Central Asia and South Caucasus sub-region

Yerevan, Armenia, 26-27 June 2018

Central Asian and South Caucasus countries and stakeholders convened to review progress on international commitments (Sendai Framework and Sustainable Development Goals) and set forward priorities. The importance of the work that NMHSs and WMO, in general, are performing in the field of disaster risk reduction was presented and discussed with the active participation of the Governmental representatives in charge of the Disaster Risk Reduction and the directors of the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services.

It led to a better recognition among the NMHS’ directors that sub-regional collaboration between the NMHSs is a prerequisite for further improvement of capacities to issue timely, harmonized,  and good quality warnings on the national scale. A side-event meeting of the policymakers from ministries in charge of DRR from the sub-region with Directors of the NMHSs improved understanding about the importance of the work of NMHSs as an integral part of the national DRR platforms and discussed the need and opportunity to develop a sub-regional approach in supporting the NMHSs in their issuing of warnings.  

Read more HERE. Watch it HERE. 

Database of extreme weather, water and climate events in Europe

A Knowledge Database is currently under development within the Regional Climate Centre on Climate Monitoring (RCC‐CM) hosted in Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD Offenbach, Germany). The aim of this database is the collection of information about extreme weather events within the region of RA VI of WMO (Europe and the Middle East).

The database focuses on the impact of weather extremes and damages. The events are described by event category, start and end date, duration, damage, affected region, the name of cyclone or anticyclone and supplementary information if available. Additional information about the anomaly of extreme events, the reference period and extreme values during the extreme event are stored as well if available. The RA VI database is considered as a model for a global catalogue of extreme meteorological events.

The Regional pilot test phase was launched shortly after the kick-off meeting, held in Offenbach, Germany from 2-4 July 2018. The Climate Monitoring node of the RA VI Regional Climate Centre coordinates the test phase that started on 10 September 2018. Due to the importance of the initiative, all Members are welcome to participate in the test phase. 

Read more HERE  

The Severe Weather Information Centre platform (beta) v.2.0

In the continuation of WMO efforts on promoting visibility of authorized warnings information from NMHSs (i.e. Live feed of alerts/warnings being issued by WMO Members (beta version)), we are delighted to inform you the launch of the new Severe Weather Information Centre platform (beta) v.2.0. 

This is a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) project to provide a single and centralized source for the external side to access official warnings and information issued by National Meteorological and Hydrological Services efficiently and effectively.

The new SWIC v 2.0 site is made available by a joint effort between the WMO Secretariat in assistance of the Hong-Kong Observatory. More WMO Members are joining it with an officially register on this online Web-based platform, and their alerts and warnings data will be added gradually to it.

The European Meteorological Society 

The 2018 meeting of the association of Meteorological Societies in Europe was hosted by Hungary. It was attended by 732 participants from 50 countries. With a number of Awards outstanding contributions to the science, its applications and communication are honoured; young scientists are supported through travel grants. 

• The European Meteorological Society (EMS) has chosen the international NinJo Consortium that developed by the NinJooperational meteorological workstation to receive the Technology Achievement Award 2018.
• Tillmann Mohr (Germany) was selected to receive the EMS Silver Medal 2018. He is honoured for his key role in shaping the European Meteorological Infrastructure. 
• Georgios Varlas from the Harokopio University of Athens was selected to receive the Young Scientist Award for his publication: “Implementation of a two-way coupled atmosphere-ocean wave modelling system for assessing air-sea interaction over the Mediterranean Sea”.
• The 2018 Broadcast Meteorologist Award was presented to Evelyn Cusack, Head of the Forecasting Division in the Irish Meteorological Service, Met Éireann.
• The Outreach & Communication Award 2018 was given to the  Online course “Come Rain or Shine”  that was developed in partnership by the Royal Meteorological Society and the University of Reading, UK. 
• Dunja Mazzocco Drvar (Croatia), RTL Hrvatska, was selected to receive the TV Weather Forecast Award 2018.

Danube River Basin Enhanced Flood Forecasting Cooperation

The three-year project – realized from more than 1.35 million euros – aims at synchronizing and unifying the hydrological data information system for the water catchment area of the Danube.  By the name of DAREFFORT (Danube River Basin Enhanced Flood Forecasting Cooperation) an international project launched officially in Budapest, Hungary on 13 September 2018.

DAREFFORT – initiated by the EU Strategy for the Danube Region – involves 12 countries, the project leader being Hungary. WMO is an associated partner. The expected outcome of the project, among others, will be a better flow of information and more accurate forecasting. Thus, with a reasonable investment, substantial material damage can be prevented in the future.  

Read more HERE.

Informal Conference of S-E European NMHSs'  Directors & SEE Consortium of Operational Predictions 

Group photo, Ohrid, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, 8 October 2018

Weather and climate know no border, therefore, partnership development in the field of hydrometeorology is vital. Informal Conference of SEE Directors of NMHSs is an informal mechanism for collaboration and partnership development in the field of hydrometeorology among the Directors of NMHSs of 18 WMO Member countries, including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Hungary, Jordan, Lebanon, Montenegro, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey and Ukraine. Some Members represent several sub-regions in Europe, others are part of the Management Group of RA VI. Top level managers annually through this informal mechanism consider the progress and challenges of their activities as well as talk about the potential opportunities to address the identified issues. 

The SEE Consortium of Operational Predictions held its 4th session back to back to the meeting of the SEE NMHSs Directors. The main participants at this meeting were the representatives of the Consortium Member-countries. In addition to the report on the activities of the consortium and the presentations of SEECOP representatives, a report from the EWGLAM / SRNWP meeting (Salzburg, Austria) was presented. Suggestions for the following SEECOP activities, the status of membership, and opportunities and mechanisms for financing the consortium were given.

WIGOS and AMDAR implementation in the Region

Group photo, Minsk, Belarus, 2 and 3 October 2018

A Workshop on WIGOS and AMDAR has been conducted for the National Focal Points on WIGOS and the National Focal Points on AMDAR with a view to
triggering the implementation of the global and regional resolutions and decisions related to WIGOS and AMDAR. On this occasion, the RA VI Task Teams in
WIGOS and ABO met in parallel on 4 October 2018 in Minsk. 

Read more HERE. 

Climate Outlook Forum hosted by the Egyptian Meteorological Agency in Cairo

Group photo, SEECOF, MEDCOF, PRESANORD, ARABCOF, 25-29 November 2018, Cairo

The last 5 days of November 2018 gathered the European, the African and the Arabic forecasters and climate specialists in the Climate Outlook Forum hosted by the Egyptian Meteorological Agency to share the outputs of the climate modelling for the approaching winter, to find a consensus and to verify the climate predictions issued for the past season.

The background conditions and the drivers of predictability at seasonal scales were considered. In fact, El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle that describes the fluctuations in temperature between the ocean and atmosphere in the east-central Equatorial Pacific is the most important source of predictability; however, when ENSO signal is week other forcing may play a larger in the season's predictability. 

Read more HERE.   

The MEDiterranean Services Chain based On climate PrEdictions (MEDSCOPE)

The MEDSCOPE project was launched in October 2017 for a duration of 3 years. COPERNICUS data are used by the MEDSCOPE project. project funded under ERA4CS, the ERA-NET Consortium “European Research Area for Climate Services”. 

The sensitivity experiments exploring the source of predictability for the Mediterranean region at seasonal timescales are ongoing; nevertheless, the preliminary results could be presented at this COF session. This research aimed at investigating the mechanisms behind the potential remote sources of predictability for the Euro-Mediterranean region.  Sea level pressure, sea surface temperature, the Arctic snow cover and sea ices are the seas and land components taken into account for the simulation of the El Nino phase. The sea-ice and snow cover extent over northern Asia have an important role on the predictability of the Northern Hemisphere cold season. 

Read more HERE. 

II. News from Members

Newly designated Permanent Representatives of RA VI Members with WMO

PR of Turkey with WMO 

Mr Volkan Mutlu COSKUN
Director-General of the Turkish State Meteorological Service

Joining forces: jointly developing and implementing the WMO Country Support Programme

Group photo, Exeter, September 2018

Representatives of 10 NMHSs of the WMO European Members, including RA VI president, funding partners (GCF, World Bank, / Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, USAID and DFID), CREWS Secretariat and WMO Secretariat met in Exeter to further develop the planned WMO Country Support Programme and WMO Expert Service. 

Areas of intervention were substantially revised, emphasizing the need for WMO to step up its role in supporting developing countries to close the capacity gap as stated in the WMO Strategic Plan 2020-2023.

The launch of the Country Support Programme at WMO Congress is envisioned, requiring a financing commitment from at least one development partner and that WMO Expert Service is operational including arrangements with a few developed country NMHSs.

Improved data sharing from Ukraine to ECWMF

Read more HERE.

Data rescue project in the hydrology of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

Group photo, Skopje, the FYR of Macedonia

The Meteorology, Climatology and Hydrology information management system has been installed and digitization of the paper records is on-going in the NMHS of the FYR of Macedonia. Out of 26 WMO Member-countries, that have this system, 4 are in RA VI, and namely Albania, Armenia, BIH (Republic of Srpska) and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. 

Read more HERE.

Development of the National Framework for Climate Services in the Republic of Moldova

Chisinau, Republic of Moldova, 6 December 2018

The Republic of Moldova is receiving support from the World Bank for the development of a National Framework for Climate Services (NFCS), which is aimed at strengthening the production, delivery and effective use of hydrometeorological and climate-related information. The Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) Office of WMO is supporting this process in collaboration with the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery.stakeholders specific feedback as well as inputs for additional measures that could be included in the National Framework. An additional objective was to share further the experiences, the perspectives and the inspiration in developing climate services both globally (as seen by the World Meteorological Organization) and nationally (among others, the experience of Switzerland was presented).

Read more HERE.

RA VI has now 51 Member-countries

The Principality of Andorra has become the 192nd Member of WMO. The Government of the United States of America in its capacity as Depositary for the WMO Convention received an instrument of accession to the WMO Convention, which entered into force for Andorra on 16 November 2018.

III. Coming soon