Identify and interpret fields and derived products
Polly Schmederer presents an evaluation of the EXIM product.
With the latest version of EXIM, new NWCSAF products were added to the list of sub-products and a new extrapolation feature, the so-called CTTH filter, was introduced. The CTTH filter allows extrapolating pixels using atmospheric motion vectors (AMVs) stemming from the same userdefined layer. This talk presents the value gained by extrapolating the new sub-products with EXIM and the impact CTTH-filter has on the extrapolation of the various sub-products.
Alexander Jann presents the NWC SAF product EXIM, its functionalities and the algorithm.
Extrapolated Imagery (EXIM) is one of EUMETSAT's NWCSAF/GEO products. EXIM kinematically extrapolates satellite imagery and selected NWCSAF products by up to a lead time of 1 hour.
The software developer gives an overview over EXIM's functionalities, the algorithm, challenges faced, and recent developments introduced in the latest version, which is currently under review for being released.
Javier Garcia Pereida presents the NWC SAF product High Resolution Winds and shows application examples.
The NWCSAF/HRW-High Resolution Winds product provides a detailed calculation of Atmospheric Motion Vectors and Trajectories locally and in real time by its users. In this moment, it is able to do this in all regions of the Earth with 5 MSG/Himawari/GOES-R geostationary satellites and 12 NOAA/SNPP/Metop/EOS polar satellites (inside NWC/GEO v2021 and NWC/PPS v2021 software packages).
It is useful in Nowcasting applications, for watch and warning of dangerous wind situations, and monitoring of the general atmospheric flow, small scale circulation and wind singularities. It can also be assimilated in NWP Models and Climate applications, with special interest in its global applicability. In this session, examples will be provided considering all these possibilities.
Lukas Tüchler presents a method to detect downdrafts from thunderstorms out of Doppler-radar data.
Convective downdrafts are one of the major thunderstorm hazards which lead to frequent damage. But the prediction of these events is a challenge for the forecasters. Can radar data help in the warning of severe convective wind? Some prediction methods to estimate the potential downdraft wind speed from radar data are discussed.
Wilfried Jacobs discusses summer convection seen in Doppler-radar wind products.
Only summer convection will be discussed. In the first part, basics of the Doppler-products‘ interpretation will be outlined (radial wind components, folding, convergences, divergences, rotations (meso-cyclones) and gusts estimation). Especially, the interpretation of PPI-products (plan position indicator) will be discussed, also in respect to fronts and temperature advection. The second part deals with instructive examples and a short overview of automatically derived nowcasting products at DWD.
Kathrin Baumann-Stanzer discusses the pros and cons of wind measurements principles and gives a historical overview.
First efforts to observe the wind profile within the lowest kilometres above ground go back to the 1920s. The development of radio transmission led, among other things, to an upswing in the area of radiosondes and captive balloons. The invention of ground-based remote sensing made it possible to monitor continuously the wind profile without costly deployment of personnel. The advantages and disadvantages of measurement principles are discussed based on selected examples from measurement campaigns.
Ad Stoffelen gives a presentation on scatterometer winds, backscattering theory and current scatterometer instruments.
Winds over sea are essential for marine forecasting and used in nowcasting and numerical weather prediction (NWP) to aid, among others, in off-shore activities (e.g., energy sector), transport and recreation, particularly to secure safety of life and property. Winds over sea are observed by satellites and available from NWP model forecasts. Most satellite winds over sea are provided by scatterometers these days; they provide swath fields of both wind speed and wind direction from polar satellites. More satellite winds are becoming available through a global virtual constellation of scatterometers. Currently, winds from MetOp-A, MetOp-B and the Indian OceanSat-2 are operationally available and provide good day coverage. Moreover, winds from the Chinese HY2A satellite are being tested with good results at KNMI and further scatterometer launches are being approved. The lecture will briefly comment on these developments, but mainly focuses on what scatterometer winds really represent, how good they are for marine forecasting and what aspects need attention when applying these winds in your routine operations.
Thomas Bruns gives a presentation on route and time optimisation of oversea transports. He discusses the climate and weather influences on ship tracks.
Thomas Bruns gives a presentation on the history of ship routing and its improvements in the last 20 years, further on ocean waves and its related hazards. He gives an introduction to the classical methods of navigation. Route optimization is closely related to the ship performance, time optimization will not work without the knowledge of detailed ship properties. Finally, the two competing ways of navigating ships across the ocean, namely onboard and shore-based routing, will be discussed.
Cecilia Marcos and Natasa Strelec Mahovic give an overview on the NWC-SAF precipitation products and their applications.
To provide the forecasters with tools for severe weather events monitoring with a suitable spatial and temporal resolution is very important. The NWCSAF project develops several products to make easier forecasters their nowcasting tasks.
The NWCSAF/MSG software package contains two products devoted to precipitation. Precipitating Clouds (PC) product assigns a probability of precipitation occurrence on each SEVIRI pixel. Convective Rainfall Rate (CRR) product estimates rain rates on convective, and stratiform associated to convection, events. The algorithms, on which those products are based, have currently two different approaches.
PC product takes advantage of surface temperatures and of those SEVIRI spectral features which have the highest correlation with precipitation, to construct a Precipitation Index (PI). According to this PI, which has been calibrated against rain gauges, a likelihood of precipitation occurrence is assigned to each SEVIRI pixel. CRR algorithm assigns rain rates to each pixel according to some SEVIRI channel information and some calibration functions, which have been calibrated using radar data. The influences of environmental and orographic effects on the precipitation distribution are taken into account through some corrections that use NWP data. Besides, two new products are included in the NWCSAF/MSG v2013 software package. These products also estimate the probability of precipitation and convective rainfall rates using a common approach, which takes advantage of cloud microphysical properties.
In a second talk, Natasa Strelec-Mahovic will present applications of the NWCSAF Precipitation Products.
Hervé Le Gléau and Thomas Krennert give an overview on the NWC-SAF cloud products and their applications.
In this 30 minutes presentation, Hervé Le Gléau (MFL) gives an overview of the cloud products that can be retrieved from the MSG/NWCSAF software. These products are the cloud mask (including dust and volcanic ash flag), the cloud type (including the cloud thermodynamical phase), and the cloud top temperature and height. The algorithms will be outlined and some validation results presented. Finally short information will be given on the new cloud microphysics product planned in the NWC/GEO software version 2015.
In a second talk, Thomas Krennert from ZAMG will present case studies using the NWCSAF Cloud Products.
Pilar Fernandez and Ana Sanchez Pique give an overview on the NWC-SAF operational services and products.
In the first presentation, Pilar Fernández gives an introduction to the NWCSAF. The general objective of the NWC SAF is to provide operational services to ensure optimum use of meteorological satellite data in Nowcasting and Very Short Range Forecasting. To achieve this goal, the NWC-SAF is responsible for the development and maintenance of both satellite derived products and of appropriate SW Packages, as well as user support and related tasks. This lecture intends to provide an overview of the NWC SAF project including objectives, consortium composition, phases, organization, services and products.
In the second part, Ana Sánchez Piqué gives a detailed overview of the NWCSAF User Services provided through the Helpdesk tool. The attendants will be shown the different services available for users and also the information available for non-users. Some statistics about the Helpdesk use made by the users (Mail Box, SPR, etc..) will also be shown.
Jean-Marc Moisselin and Frederic Autones give an overview on the NWC-SAF RDT product and its application.
RDT-CW (Rapid Development Thunderstorm Convection Warning) product is an object-oriented diagnostic for convective clouds or cells. RDT-CW is mainly based on satellite data. RDT-CW software tracks clouds, identifies those that are convective (discrimination), and provides some descriptive attributes for their dynamics. Year after year many attributes have been added to the convection object. These improvements offer end-users the possibility to focus on specific parameters according to their center of interest: dynamic of the system (cooling rate, motion vector) lightning activity, rainfall, main cloud phase of the cell, etc. These attributes may come from various sources such as NWP data, other PGEs (Product Generation Element), lightning network. In the v2013 release, an overshooting top detection inside RDT cell is proposed to users. This new attribute allows to focus on potentially hazardous areas.
In the future releases the description of convective cells will be enriched, giving a high priority to the use of other SAFNWC products. A nowcast of RDT up to one hour will be implemented.
Several SAFNWC processing chains are implemented at Meteo-France over various geographical areas: those covered by MSG of course, but also those covered by other geostationary satellites, like overseas territory where Meteo-France centers are still implemented. Forecasters in these centers are the main users to benefit from RDT as an additional product. Productions over Europe and Africa benefit to Aeronautical forecasters from Meteo-France’s National Forecast center, to French Army, and also to ACMAD, Niamey.
A target visualization tool with nowcasting capabilities will be presented, which allows taking advantage from RDT end-product. Presentation of RDT for various situations and over various areas will also be undertaken, and the latest development implemented in v2013 release will be highlighted.