METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE CYPRUS Dr. Silas Michaelides Director

1. METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE CYPRUS Dr. Silas Michaelides Director 11th Informal Conference of South-East European NHMs Directors (ICEED) - Tel Aviv 10-11 October 2011

2. OVERVIEW The Meteorological Service is a government department under the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment. The Meteorological Service has a total staff or 80, including scientific, technical and clerical members. The Administrative Offices are situated in Nicosia, with offices at Larnaca and Paphos airports and a radiosonde station. 11th Informal Conference of South-East European NHMs Directors (ICEED) - Tel Aviv 10-11 October 2011

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4. Cyprus Meteorological Service- Perspectives on: Aviation DDR GFCS WIS/WIGOS 11th Informal Conference of South-East European NHMs Directors (ICEED) - Tel Aviv 10-11 October 2011

5. Aviation Cyprus Meteorological Service operates two airport meteorological offices, at Larnaca and Paphos International Airports. The Meteorological Service of Cyprus performs Standard ICAO Annex 3 services and a Service Level Agreement is in force with Civil Aviation Department. The Weather Forecasting office is situated at Larnaca Airport. Aerodrome METARS, TAFS, SIGMET, aerodrome warnings and other custom made formats are issued for each of the two international airports on the island, namely Larnaca and Paphos and the FIR. 11th Informal Conference of South-East European NHMs Directors (ICEED) - Tel Aviv 10-11 October 2011

6. The weather forecasting office is fully operational on a 24h basis, at Larnaca airport with 2 duty Meteorological Officers (Weather Forecasters), performing weather forecasting functions, including (mostly) services to civil aviation. The shift also includes four Meteorological Technical staff of various grades. All have been trained appropriately in accordance with WMO 258, along with refresher training, whenever needed. Each member of the staff has his/her own training/educational record. Larnaca forecasting office also operates as Meteorological Watch Office (MWO) for Nicosia FIR. 11th Informal Conference of South-East European NHMs Directors (ICEED) - Tel Aviv 10-11 October 2011

7. Flight documentation is based on three satellite receiving systems: RETIM, SADIS 2G and DWD Sat. Two AWOS with automatic observations complemented by observers in Larnaca and Paphos perform routine half-hour observations during the day. A C-band Weather radar covers the FIR. Two new X-band radars are expected to be in place soon, one at each airport. 11th Informal Conference of South-East European NHMs Directors (ICEED) - Tel Aviv 10-11 October 2011

8. CyprusMeteorological Service bases its forecasts on mostly three Limited area NWP models: The WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) and Bolam (Bologna Limited Area model) are run locally, whereas, some COSMO data are regularly uploaded by the German Meteorological Service (DWD) and used in day-to-day forecasting practices. 11th Informal Conference of South-East European NHMs Directors (ICEED) - Tel Aviv 10-11 October 2011

9. The Aviation Services of the Meteorological Service are ISO9001-2008 certified and also I Q Net certified. Also, the services offered are continuously monitored and audited by the National Supervisory Authority (NSA). The Meteorological Service of Cyprus is certified under Single European Sky regulations and related legislature. Cyprus Meteorological Service is the designated Air Navigation Service Provider(ANSP) for Meteorology. Cyprus Meteorological Service is also designated as the “Meteorological Authority” as specified in Annex 3. 11th Informal Conference of South-East European NHMs Directors (ICEED) - Tel Aviv 10-11 October 2011

10. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Close co-operation with the Civil Protection Agency. Early Warnings for Hazardous Weather are issued and disseminated Active participation in METEOALARM WARNING SYSTEM (EMMA – EUMETNET) . Development of local software. Operation of RISKMED – Bolam model for automatic early warnings on severe weather phenomena 11th Informal Conference of South-East European NHMs Directors (ICEED) - Tel Aviv 10-11 October 2011

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13. GlobalFrameworkforClimaticServices - (GFCS) The Climatology Section collects/ quality controls and archives data from a network of meteorological/climatological stations on the island, comprising of: 3 Synoptic Stations 40 Climatological Stations 32 Automatic Weather Stations 111 Stand-alone rain-gauges – rain-recorders 1 Radiosonde station 1 Multi-instrument actinometric station 11th Informal Conference of South-East European NHMs Directors (ICEED) - Tel Aviv 10-11 October 2011

14. Climatic Services offered: Provision of climatic and statistical information on weather parameters (Rainall, Temperature, Wind, Radiation, etc) for the needs of the local construction industry, research community, Information consists of simply raw data or data in specific tabular or graphical formats, according to requests. Issue of Certificates and Reports for specific weather / climatological conditions for a variety of applications (legal, insurance claims , construction delays, accidents etc). QMS is under development. 11th Informal Conference of South-East European NHMs Directors (ICEED) - Tel Aviv 10-11 October 2011

15. Climatic modelling: The UK Met Office Climatic model Precis is run on two parallel computers. First results with IPCC scenarios are already available. We are currently in the evaluation phase of these results. There are plans to join forces with a local research Institute (Cyprus Institute) 11th Informal Conference of South-East European NHMs Directors (ICEED) - Tel Aviv 10-11 October 2011

16. WIS (WMO Information System) At present, all the synoptic lists (SYNOPs, TEMPs, PILOTs) are forwarded to GTS via ATHENS. They are transmitted over the AFTN (Aeronautical Fixed Telecommunications Network). SYNOPs are sent to ATHENS as FM-12 via AFTN and they are encoded into BUFR there. TEMPs are formulated into BUFR locally but until now it has not been possible to transit to GTS in BUFR. They are transmitted in FM-35 format. PILOT is still sent in FM-32 format. 11th Informal Conference of South-East European NHMs Directors (ICEED) - Tel Aviv 10-11 October 2011

17. Conclusion: Regarding the formulation into TDCF (Table Driven Code Form), Cyprus is not at a good stage and that might cause difficulties in implementing WIS. At this stage also, no preparations have been made in implementing WIS for providing access to local user for meteorological data and information through WIS. Also, it is not clear to us how the flow of information will be from OUR National Centre (NC) TO THE RESPECTIVE Data Collection or Production Centres (DCPC) AND/OR TO THE RESPECTIVE Global Information System Centre (GISC). Considering the experience with different telecommunication networks, my impression is that when we shall come to the implementation of WIS, internet might me the best - optimum solution. 11th Informal Conference of South-East European NHMs Directors (ICEED) - Tel Aviv 10-11 October 2011