Regional Report on the current status of the exchange of weather radar data. RA VI

1. Regional Report on the current status of the exchange of weather radar data.RA VI Stuart Matthews, UK Met Office on behalf of EUMETNET OPERA April 24th 2013

2. Outline European collaboration (OPERA, BALTRAD, etc) OPERA Data information model (ODIM) OPERA Data Centre - Odyssey OPERA IV ECOMET Questions.

3. European exchange (a very brief history) Long history of exchanging radar products between nations and at regional level. Nordic and Baltic (NORDRAD) Central Europe NW Europe (UK with IE, F, D, B, NL) Huge challenge of formats, product types, bandwidth, national objectives (hydrology, aviation, etc) Coordinated collaboration started with GORN and COST actions (late 90s) EUMETNET OPERA programme started in 1999

4. EUMETNET Established so National Weather Services in Europe can be efficient and effective. Provides a framework for European National Weather services to work together, share ideas and best practice and share costs of major infrastructure. Provide a collective voice when communicating with the European Union and other international bodies http://www.eumetnet.eu/

5. EUMETNET – OPERAOperational Programme for the Exchange of weather RAdar information Started in 1999 and 4th phase has just started with work agreed through to 2017 27 members and 3 cooperating members http://www.eumetnet.eu/opera

6. EUMETNET – OPERAOperational Programme for the Exchange of weather RAdar information Opportunity for NMS to share information & experiences – 6 month Expert Team meetings, OPERA radar database (feed to WMO db) Sponsor work packages performed by various NMSs Promote standard radar production practices Help define common data format standards Organize and support Radar Data protection, e.g. wind farms and frequency Support the development and operations of a centralised processing capability to generate pan-European composites. The OPERA community has developed several software packages to enable exchange of radar data from different sources and manufacturers. http://www.eumetnet.eu/opera

7. Other Region VI collaborations and exchange BALTRAD and BALTRAD+ EU funded project Advance weather radar network around Baltic Sea Most BALTRAD members are also members of OPERA Strong collaboration between OPERA and BALTRAD especially future Odyssey development Not all Region VI in OPERA or BALTRAD Network ready radars in most ECMWF US radar data

8. ODIM (OPERA Data Information Model) Big success of OPERA 3 Pioneered by SMHI (Sweden) and KNMI (the Netherlands) Adapted by OPERA and radar manufacturers. ITT in Europe now often contain requirement for ODIM output Hierarchical approach Two encoded versions developed for OPERA: ODIM-HDF5 and ODMIN-BUFR

9. OPERA Data Centre - Odyssey 2009 – 2010 OPERA development of centralised capability to produce pan-European composites. Operational since January 2011. Joint operational responsibility between UKMO and Météo France Both centres processing the same data, creating same products using the same software/algorithms. Only one node disseminating products at any given time. High level of resilience with simple fail-over procedure. ~99.9% availability

10. OPERA Data Centre - Odyssey INPUT ~130 radars Polar (volumes or sent as individual sweeps) Reflectivity and recently radial winds too. Level II ODIM compliant BUFR or HDF5 Mostly use the internet rather than GTS/RMDCN • OUTPUT • 3 composites • Max reflectivity, • surface precipitation rate & • hourly accumulation • Uniform quality • No-stitching • BUFR and HDF5 • 2km • 15 min updates, available DT+15minutes • Whole European domain

11. Country Status Operationally receiving data from 20 countries Various temporal resolutions. 7 x 15min, 5 x 10min and 8 x 5min Most send volumes but some single elevation 16 x Volumes and 4 x individual scans but these account for nearly 60 radars As of February 2013, 5 countries send wind data in the volumes Most countries use HDF5. 2x BUFR (over 40 radars), 17 x HDF5 and one country uses both 1Countries using RMDCN to send data

12. OPERA Data Centre – 2011 to 2013 March 2011 (Dec 2012) April 2013 1st pre-processing using BALTRAD’s toolbox Belgium, Croatia and Denmark added

13. OPERA 4, 2013 to 2017 • New OPERA phase started in January 2013 • Consortium of National Met Service led by FMI (Finland) and includes Sweden, France, UK and Croatia. Additional contribution from Poland, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Belgium • Producing a framework for collecting and generating quality index for incoming (generated at national level) and pre-processed (generated by Odyssey) data • Redistribution of incoming data, with centrally generated QI, to NWP centres. • Develop pre-processing modules with capability to produce products to at least same quality as national composites • Develop 3D composites

14. ECOMET • ECOMET. Economic Interest Group under Belgian Law • Created in 1995 and has 25 members • Created to: • Preserve free and unrestricted exchange of meteorological information for operational functions • To ensure wide availability of basic met data and products for commercial application • Members make a wide range of radar products (Level III) available through a catalogue. Includes price. • Developed policy for exchanging data between most European countries • Data policy, including price, for Odyssey products almost agreed

15. Conclusions • Most European exchange is organised by EUMETNET through its OPERA programme • Regional networks are also well established (BALTRAD) and developing (Russia and her neighbours) • Common data model (ODIM) has significantly simplified the exchange • Now into 3rd year of the operational European data hub generating pan European composite products • OPERA 4 • Framework for adding quality information to incoming volumes • Development of pre-processing algorithms to improve quality • Redistribution of raw data plus centrally produced quality index • Commercially available Odyssey products