Precipitation estimation and nowcasting at IMGW-PIB (SEiNO system)

A System for the Estimation and Nowcasting of Precipitation (SEiNO) is being developed at the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management – National Research Institute. Its aim is to provide the national meteorological and hydrological service with comprehensive operational tools for real-time high-resolution analyses and forecasts of precipitation fields. The system consists of numerical models for: (i) precipitation field analysis (estimation), (ii) precipitation nowcasting, i.e., extrapolation forecasting for short lead times, (iii) generation of probabilistic nowcasts. The precipitation estimation is performed by the conditional merging of information from telemetric rain gauges, the weather radar network, and the Meteosat satellite, employing quantitative quality information (quality index). Nowcasts are generated by three numerical models, employing various approaches to take account of different aspects of convective phenomena. Probabilistic forecasts are computed based on the investigation of deterministic forecast reliability determined in real time. Some elements of the SEiNO system are still under development and the system will be modernized continuously to reflect the progress in measurement techniques and advanced methods of meteorological data processing

MeteoGIS: GIS-based system for monitoring of severe meteorological phenomena

The MeteoGIS system developed at the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management – National Research Institute in Poland is a GIS-based system for real-time monitoring of weather and the generation of meteorological warnings. Apart from its monitoring features, it can also provide more advanced analysis, including SQL (Structured Query Language) queries and statistical analyses. Input data are provided mainly by the INCA-PL 2 nowcasting model which employs forecasts from the high-resolution AROME numerical weather prediction model and measurement data from the Polish weather radar network POLRAD and surface meteorological stations. As well as this, data from the PERUN lighting detection system are used. Ingestion of such data allows for the mitigation of risk from potentially hazardous weather phenomena such as extreme temperatures, strong wind, thunderstorms, heavy rain and subsequent impending floods. The following meteorological parameters at ground level are visualised in the MeteoGIS: (i) precipitation (accumulation and type), (ii) temperature, (iii) wind (speed and direction), (iv) lightning (locations and type). End users of the system are workers from civil protection services who are interested in shortterm warnings against severe weather events, especially area-oriented ones (related to districts, catchments, etc.). The reliability of visualised data is a very important issue, and from the MeteoGIS user’s point of view the improvement in data quality is a continuous process

Integrating nowcasting with crisis management and risk prevention in a transnational and interdisciplinary framework

This paper presents the recent WWRP/WMO Forecast Demonstration Project INCA-CE (INtegrating nowCAsting for Central Europe) co-funded by the European Union. Twenty-four partners of national and regional hydro-meteorological services, national and regional crisis and disaster management centers, and authorities for road management world-wide have participated in INCA-CE for international cooperation on nowcasting development, interdisciplinary cooperation for nowcasting applications and transnational cooperation for nowcasting services. INCA-CE has implemented the nowcasting system INCA at the project partner countries, applied INCA nowcasting in civil protection, operational hydrology and road safety, and improved the INCA system based on the end user's requirements. The main difference to other similar projects is that end user's involvement and the improvements involve the whole end user value chain. The project has developed several ideas for end users on how to interpret nowcasting products (INCA-SWING) and on how to deal with the nowcasting products in their working practice (INCA-MCPEX and ISW). INCA-CE is also oriented strongly to transnational cooperation in nowcasting development and implementation, in easy access to a homogenized set of nowcasting products from those INCA providers to end users in the region, and in the transnational use of real-time products by end users in cases of high impact weather across borders