Projects


SEE-MHEWS-A (South-East European Multi-Hazard Early Warning Advisory System) – Phase 2.5

Project website https://public.wmo.int/en/projects/see-mhews-a
Title South-East European Multi-Hazard Early Warning Advisory System - SEE-MHEWS-A phase 2.5
Abstract SEE-MHEWS-A project provides support the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services in Southeast Europe in fulfilling their core function: providing timely and accurate warnings of hazardous weather and hydrological events in order to reduce loss of lives and other impacts on people, infrastructure and industry.
The overall objectives of the project are:
  • Strengthened regional cooperation through leveraging of national, regional and global capacities to develop improved hydrometeorological forecasts, advisories and warnings, which will contribute to saving lives and reducing economic losses and damage
  • Strengthened national MHEWS systems by making regional and sub-regional observing, monitoring and forecasting tools and data available to the participating countries and other beneficiaries
  • Implemented impact-based forecasts and risk-based warning capacities that contribute to better informed decision-making by national governments, disaster management authorities, humanitarian agencies, and NGOs
  • Harmonized forecasts and warnings among the NMHS's especially in trans-boundary areas of the region
  • Increased operational forecasting capabilities of NMHS's staff.
The SEE-MHEWS-A project established a framework for the application of five numerical weather prediction systems in the southeast Europe region, including the ECMWF, ALADIN, ICON, COSMO, and NMM-B models, being adapted to forecasters’ needs and available through SEE-MHEWS-A Common Information Platform (CIP). The phase 2.5 (2021-2022) is a continuation of second phase of this project (2019-2020). The online verification through CIP and offline verification with a structured and region-wide assessment of modelling systems' strengths and weaknesses will be developed and implemented as a necessary component of the process to establish a multi-hazard early warning advisory system in South-East Europe. The target region is one of the rainiest areas of Europe, where heavy precipitation and floods frequently affect lives and damage goods and property, and it includes Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia.
Through CIP it will be possible to compare forecasts and observations for key meteorological parameters at measurement locations in the target area, utilizing both GTS and non-GTS observations. This type of product will allow forecasters to associate a level of confidence with a model's ability to forecast weather in the next few days, based on how the model performed in forecasting the weather evolution in the past few days. Furthermore, offline moment-based and categorical statistical verification, complemented with neighbourhood verification approaches, will assess strengths and weaknesses of the SEE-MHEWS-A modelling systems in forecasting precipitation for five target countries.
Key words numerical weather prediction, verification, observational database, hydrological modelling, model verification, southeast Europe
Responsible person and collaborators Branka Ivančan-Picek, PhD; Project Steering Committee
Kristian Horvath, PhD; DHMZ project lead, TT on Numerical Weather Prediction
Iris Odak Plenković, PhD; TT on Numerical Weather Prediction
Endi Keresturi, PhD; TT on Numerical Weather Prediction
Ines Srzić, TT on Observations
Tatjana Vujnović, PhD; TT on Hydrology
Lidija Fuštar, TT on on Forecasting and Nowcasting
Suzana Panežić, TT on on Forecasting and Nowcasting
Duration 8 September 2021 – 31 December 2022
Collaborating institutions World Meteorological Organization (WMO), national hydro-meteorological services of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, North Macedonia, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine.
The role of DHMZ on the project
  • Development of software tools required to implement the required online verification methods in CIP for several meteorological parameters at the target area
  • Application of the previously developed offline verification methodology to precipitation forecasts for the 5-country target area, followed by report preparation
  • Conducting other tasks in Task Teams in which DHMZ is engaged