EUMETNET

C-SRNWP Programme

Report 2006-3: July – October

Main point

The main point of the activity of the Programme Manager is furthermore related to the realization of the Recommendations of the Vision Workshop of last spring.

Most of the work has been the preparation of a draft Programme Proposal for an enlarged SRNWP Programme from the 1st of January 2008.

This draft Proposal has been sent in August to the Programme Members as a preparation for the SRNWP Annual Meeting, which took place in Zurich the 12th of October.

The main decisions of that meeting have been:

- to form a Redaction Committee to finalise the Programme Proposal and the Programme Decision (2 representatives per Consortium)

- to propose to Council to accompany the third phase of the SRNWP Programme with the 3 following SRNWP Projects:

o Interoperability

o European LAM EPS (also as the European contribution to the THORPEX TIGGE-LAM)

o Model Verification

For each of these three SRNWP Projects, it has decided to form a Redaction Committee (one representative per Consortium) for the drafting of the respective Project Proposals.

It must be noted that these actions

- the enlargement and strengthening of the SRNWP Programme

- the interoperability between model systems

- the development of an operational European LAM-EPS

- the realisation of a common model verification and of a model comparison

are also proposals made by the Vision Workshop.

Other points

From the 9th to the 12th of October, the 28th EWGLAM and the 13th SRNWP Meetings have take place in Zurich. This joint meeting followed for the first time the new format defined at the 2005 Annual Meetings in Ljubljana.

It is been decided to keep this format for next year's joint meeting (Dubrovnik, 9 - 12 October 2007).

We had the pleasure of the visit of the EUMETNET CO for the SRNWP Meeting (the 12th of October) who has explained to the participants how the financing of the EUMETNET Programmes works.

As for each Annual EWGLAM/SRNWP Meeting, the whole information (presentations, posters, meeting reports and list of participants) can be seen on the Programme web site (http://srnwp.cscs.ch/Annual_Meetings/2006/entrypage2006.htm).

Also initiated by the Workshop "A Vision for NWP in Europe" has been the recommendation

Identifying a common format for the exchange of a limited set of products for the benefits of forecasters.

The Programme Manager has presented this idea to the "Working Group on Cooperation between European Forecasters" which held its Annual Meeting in Athens in September. The forecasters have warmly accepted this recommendation and a working group will have now to be set up to define this common format.

The Programme Manager has been invited by the COSMO Consortium to participate to its Annual General Meeting that was held in September in Bucharest. At that meeting, the HIRLAM Consortium was represented by its Programme Manager and the UK Meteorological Office by its SRNWP National Representative.

Concerning the state of the dissemination of the SYNOP on an hourly basis in Europe, the present situation has been analysed and the weaknesses identified. This will allow asking the NWS very specifically for improving and enlarging this dissemination (this work is also explicitly encouraged by the EUCOS Scientific Advisory Team).

Outlook November - December 2006

Main activity

- Start redaction work with the Redaction Committees for the Programme Proposal (first priority) and for the three Project Proposals (see above).

Workshops

- ALADIN-HIRLAM LAM EPS Workshop: 13-14 November, Vienna.

It is hoped that at this meeting the European contribution to THORPEX TIGGE-LAM centred on the HIRLAM-ALADIN GLAMEPS Project with participation of COSMO and of the UK Meteorological Office will be decided, as well as its possible financing by the foreseen SRNWP Project "Development of an operational European LAM-EPS" (see above).

- Fifth SRNWP Mini-Workshop on Numerical Techniques

5-6 December 2006 in Zagreb (Croatia)

This meeting will be organised by the NMS of Croatia.