SRNWP (SHORT RANGE NUMERICAL WEATHER PREDICTION PROGRAMME)

QUARTERLY REPORT: FIRST QUARTER OF 2008

At its autumn meeting the EUMETNET Council decided about the continuation and renewal of the C-SRNWP Programme with the nomination of OMSZ (Hungarian Meteorological Service) as new responsible member of the programme. The proposed and accepted Programme Manager became Andras Horanyi. After the Programme Decision, the transition from the old Programme towards the new one had been started immediately with the active help of MeteoSwiss in general and Jean Quiby (former Programme Manager) in particular. The main event of autumn was the usual EWGLAM/SRNWP meeting, where significant time was devoted to the preparatory steps towards the newly organised SRNWP activities. The new governance of the C-SRNWP Programme encompasses the following details:

- SRNWP Advisory Committee was established, where the members are the heads of the 5 LAM Consortia (ALADIN, COSMO, HIRLAM, LACE, MetOffice) and the SRNWP Programme Manager. A short meeting was already conveyed during the EWGLAM/SRNWP meetings in Dubrovnik (October, 2007). The first official meeting will be organised in Budapest at 15-16 May, 2008.

- Expert Teams were created and members nominated from the LAM Consortia. The Expert Teams are the main vehicles for the scientific and technological exchange of knowledge and information between the Consortia together with the harmonisation of the respective workplans for the given area of interest. The inter-consortia workplans are under preparation and will be discussed in details during the SRNWP Advisory Committee meeting in May. The following Expert Teams were formed:

o Data assimilation and use of observations

o Diagnostics, validation and verification

o Dynamics and lateral boundary coupling

o Link with applications

o Physical parameterisation (upper air)

o Predictability and EPS

o Surface and soil processes (model and data assimilation)

o System aspects

- Two new programmes were formalised (which was already demanded by the EUMETNET Council): interoperability and verification. The Interoperability one was already anticipated for acceptance by the Council and the details of the Programme was described by the MetOffice (as future responsible member). The verification proposal will be assessed by the Council for the first time in its spring session.

During the transition period the webpage of the C-SRNWP Programme was migrated to the OMSZ’s location, the address of the new webpage is http://srnwp.met.hu.