Iwan Holleman, Program Manager OPERA c/o The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) EUMETNET - OPERA WMO-TECO: 27-29.

Iwan Holleman, Program Manager OPERAc/o The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI)

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EUMETNET - OPERA

WMO-TECO: 27-29 November 2008

Iwan Holleman (KNMI), Program Manager

Laurent Delobbe (RMI), and

Anton Zgonc (EARS), working group chairs

The European Weather Radar Network


EUMETNET (RA-VI)


OPERA Introduction

Operational Programme on Exchange of weather RAdar information

• Weather radar networking programme of EUMETNET

• Budget 130-146 k€/year

• History:

• COST 72, COST 73, and COST 75 (1979-1997)

• COST 717 and COST 731 (1999-2010)

• GORN (Liaison Group On Radar Networking)

• OPERA-1 (1999-2003, K. Köck, TU-Graz)

• OPERA-2 (2004-2006, A. Huuskonen, FMI)

• OPERA-3 (2007-2011, I. Holleman, KNMI)


OPERA’s MissionIs to “harmonize and improve the operational exchange of weather radar information between National Meteorological Services”

• “To support European applications of weather radar data through the establishment of a Data Hub function where harmonised products … are generated and managed.” • “To investigate and evaluate new radar technology and its relevance to operational requirements for present and future radar systems and bands.” • Note:

• Oriented towards operations• Information = data + knowledge• Mainly between NMSs


Members of OPERA (29)

Austria Belgium Bulgaria

Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic

Denmark Estonia Finland

France Germany Greece

Hungary Iceland Ireland

Italy Latvia Luxembourg

Netherlands Norway Poland

Portugal Romania Slovak Republic

Slovenia Spain Sweden

Switzerland United Kingdom


OPERA Network

Network details:• 175 Weather radars

• Mostly C-band, some S-band

• About 110 Doppler radars

• Some 10 polarimetric radars

• Polarimetric radars are becoming operational standard


OPERA and WINPROF

Weather radar wind profiles

• Increase of availability, ~ 100 sites

• Harmonization of GTS headers, format, and content

• EUCOS upper-air network

CWINDE


Organization

• OPERA group meets twice a year• Typically 35-40 delegates from 20 countries• Plenary session and working groups• WG1 (Delobbe): Radar Technology and Algorithms• WG2 (Zgonc): Formats, Software, Data Hub


Projects of WG1

Working Group 1 is concerned with: • Weather Radars in Europe (Database on website from 15 December)

• Application of quality information for radars and radar data

• Promotion and evaluation of operational radar data use

• Evaluation of new technologies (Polarimetric radars, X-band)

• Site and frequency protection (Link with EUMETFREQ)

• Harmonized production practices


RLAN Interferences in Czech Rep.


Projects of WG2

Working Group 2 is concerned with:• Data exchange software development (BUFR and HDF5)

• BUFR software maintenance (Software available on website)

• BUFR table maintenance

• Compositing software support

• Pilot Data Hub operations (Developed during OPERA-2)

• Operational Radar Data Center: specification, development, Operational Radar Data Center: specification, development, and operationand operation


Pilot Data Hub at Met Office


Evaluation at ECMWF (P. Lopez)

OPERA ECMWF

OPERA minus

ECMWFRMSD


User-groups on European scale

Important user groups of continental-scale radar data for NMSs:

• Core services forecasting and nowcasting, e.g. NMSs and EUMETSAT

• NWP (Assimilation and verification), e.g. EUCOS, SRNWP (and consortia), ECMWF, COST 731

• Civil and military aviation, e.g. Eurocontrol

• Hydrology and water management, e.g. JRC Ispra and COST 731


Three functional options

• Definition of three options for operational radar data center:

• Option 1: 2D Compositing of 2D single-site products

• Option 2: 2D Compositing of 3D volume data

• Option 3: 3D Compositing of 3D volume data

• All options use single-site radar data

• Input (volume) data also available for NWP

• Functionality of Options is mapped on User Requirements


Radar Data Center developmentTimelines of development of data center:

• June 07: Establishment of OPERA subgroup for writing specifications• April 08: Functional specifications approved by OPERA• June 08: Functional specifications approved by EUMETNET/PB-Obs• October 08: Functional specifications approved by EUMETNET/Council• November 08: Call for proposals within OPERA• May 09: Selection of Responsible Member and release of budget by EUMETNET/Council• June 09: Start of development of operational data center• Mid 10: Start operation of operational radar data center


OPERA Website: www.knmi.nl/opera

Liaison with

WMO?

Iwan Holleman, Program Manager OPERA c/o The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) EUMETNET - OPERA WMO-TECO: 27-29.

Documents

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radar networking opera

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