Identify surface features
Michael Winkler puts heavily burdened roofs in the spotlight by presenting recent efforts in updating the Austrian snow load standard and showing an actual example of snow load monitoring and hazard management.
Snowy winters lead to heavy snow loads on buildings and constructions. Surprisingly often, the snow load assessment basis of international and national standards are regionally reached or exceeded. Damages or even collapses do occur, cause expenses and threaten human lives. However, extreme snow loads only rarely are considered as natural hazards. This talk puts heavily burdened roofs in the spotlight by presenting recent efforts in updating the Austrian snow load standard and showing an actual example of snow load monitoring and hazard management.
Gaëlle Kerdraon presents the algorithm of snow/ice detection in the cloud mask and cloud type products of the NWC-SAF and shows some examples.
The first step of the cloud detection during day, is the snow/ice detection on the ground or at the sea surface. The talk will give details of the flag snow/ice in the cloud mask and in the cloud type. The algorithm will then be presented and illustrated by a recent example. The importance of this snow/ice detection will be pointed out for a good cloud detection. Finally, we will explain the limitations of this flag snow/ice.
Roland Winkler talks about rules and regulations that are in place at airports to provide passenger security in harsh winter weather.
The weather still has a major impact on aviation today. Weather forecasts in aviation not only support safety, but also provide important input on the subject of economical air traffic. As part of this presentation, I would like to give a rough overview of how air traffic works in the cold season. I will speak about de- and anti-icing of aircraft and the snow removal in the airside area. Finally, I will show which meteorological products are created to support safe and economical air traffic.
Ivan Smiljanić talks about the future possibilities detecting snow and ice from MTG data.
Detection of snow, but also its classification (depth, crystal size, age) depends mostly on the spectral and spatial resolution of geostationary satellites. Having better spatial resolution and more spectral channels, Meteosat Third Generation satellites (MTG) will be able to see snow better and tell more about its flavours, especially in the visible and near-IR spectral regions. Join if you are interested to know how the snow detection will be done with MTG and what is "the colour of the snow" with future data.
Mária Putsay discusses how single channels and RGB types can be effectively used for snow detection.
Single channels and RGB types will be discussed and compared from the snow detection point of view: how effectively they can be used for this purpose, which benefits and limitations they have. Physical background will be discussed and several examples will be shown.
Ideally an RGB type is usable for snow detection if the snow-covered cloud-free surface has good colour contrast against both now-free surface and clouds. Practically, one problem may cause difficulty: ice clouds and snowy land often appear similarly. Not surprising: their physical properties are similar as both consist of ice crystals. The presentation discusses which RGB types show snow and ice clouds less similarly. Forecasters usually look at animations, this also helps to distinguish snow covered area from moving ice clouds.