WMO

3.3 Summary of regional reports on the exchange of weather radar data, highlighting progress, plans

and challengesCBS/OPAG-IOS Workshop on Radar Data Exchange

Exeter, UK, 24-26 April 2013

Daniel Michelson, SMHI, Sweden

WMO

Guidance: INF3.1

Data exchange practices WHAT?

Polar data and/or products More radar than other non-Res 40 obs data? Growth trend (more data being exchanged)?

WHERE? Between/among which countries?

HOW (technical)? File format(s) Exchange mechanisms, e.g. FTP, GTS, other

WMO

Guidance: INF3.1

Data exchange practices HOW (political)?

Bilateral / multilateral agreement? Wider political framework? Capacity building within the region? Does Resolution 25 help?

What is the nature of existing data exchange?

How prepared are we for global data exchange?

Template summary table

WHERE? WHAT? HOW?

Countries Polar Products Format Comms Agreement

Countries denoted by top-level domain.

RA I – Africa

WHERE? WHAT? HOW?

Countries Polar Products Format Comms Agreement

BW, MZ, ZA Z in Regional composites out

TITAN TITAN MoUCentralized

RA II – Asia

WHERE? WHAT? HOW?

Countries Polar Products Format Comms Agreement

CN – HK Z, V, W Composite Polar: WSR-88DComposite: ?

WIS using “MSTP special line”

Bilateral Guangdong – HK.Centralized compositing.

CN – MO

CN – KR 5 products GIF Special ”GTS” line Bilateral

CN –> KP “several” Bilateral, one-way

CN – TW Composites To be considered

RA III – South America

Brazil Many radars and many owners/operators,

some of which are commercial. Most data available in TITAN format. Some in

UF, PNG, BUFR, netCDF, industrial. Argentina: several radars, some providing data in

TITAN format, others using proprietary industrial formats (EDGE, MURAN, IRIS, Rainbow)

Elsewhere: industrial formats Big challenges to coordinate domestic data flow. International exchange? (Data from BR and PY)

RA IV – North and Central America, Caribbean

WHERE? WHAT? HOW?

Countries Polar Products Format Comms Agreement

CA – US “native”CA: IRISUS: L2, L3, L4

GTSFTP – pull

Bilateral

AN – SX AN: IRIS

CU - US Composite US L4 Push To NWS (Hurricane Center)

BB, BZ, GF, TT (more?)

BUFR Planned EC Caribbean radar project – multilateral MoU

BS, CU, PR ? (On BS website)

RA V – South-West Pacific

WHERE? WHAT? HOW?

Countries Polar Products Format Comms Agreement

AU – NZ yes yes “raw”“graphics”

Bilateral

MY – SG BUFR Bilateral

RA VI – Europe

WHERE? WHAT? HOW?

Countries Polar Products Format Comms Agreement

BE, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, HR, IE, IS, NL, NO, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SI, SK, UK …

Z, V Z compositeR compositeRR-1hr composite

ODIM_H5ODIM_BUFR

FTPGTS

EUMETNETOPERA – centralized through “Odyssey”

AT, CH, CZ, DE, HR, PL, SI, SK

Z CAPPIs inZ composites out

BUFR GTS CERAD – centralized

Vertical wind profiles BUFR GTS EUMETNET CWINDE

RA VI – Europe (continued)

WHERE? WHAT? HOW?

Countries Polar Products Format Comms Agreement

DK, EE, FI, LV, NO, SE

Z Pseudo-CAPPIVertical wind profiles

HDF5 – COST 717 model

NORDRAD – “persistent HTTP”, XML headers,“notify-pull”

NORDRAD Cooperation Agreement: multilateral, decentralized

BY, DK, DE, EE, FI, LT, LV, NO, PL, SE, UA

T, Z, V, WDual-pol moments

ODIM_H5 BALTRAD – HTTP, own HTML headers,“subscribe-push”,WIS connectivity

BALTRAD Cooperation Agreement: multilateral, decentralized

Both BALTRAD and OPERA incorporate centralized QC in their data processing chains.

OPERA exchange matrix

Version: 3 January 2013Updated regularly

Existing exchange between regions?

Yes: NCEP Stage IV surface rain composites from

NEXRAD in GRIB format (RA IV) used by ECMWF (RA VI)

EC Caribbean (RA IV) radar project includes GF (RA III)

Potentially yes: RA II and V: pursuing framework under the

umbrella of ASEAN

Important issues to be discussed

Network load balancing between site and center (domestic data transmission) ray-by-ray.

Standard file format required for managing polarimetric data. Vital that the standard is adhered to.

Data/products should be defined by levels (I-III) for exchange.

WMO experts should define harmonized QC methods which are then applied by members (RQQI?).

Summary – progress

National and regional weather radar networks have developed relatively recently; coverage over land becoming more complete, but still large gaps.

Polarimetric radar technology is being phased into operational networks globally.

Holistic QC chains are emerging in some places, but are still in their infancy.

Harmonized data representation proven possible in a large heterogeneous network (ODIM).

Summary – plans

National networks to continue to develop and improve.

Regional networks to evolve. Increased data availability should help

clarify/refine user requirements, e.g. NWP, hydrology, etc.

Summary – challenges

Surface-based scanning weather radar will always have irregular spatial coverage.

Unlike e.g. satellite data, radar data are much more heterogeneous due to different drivers, manufacturers, operators, configurations, data representations, etc.

Political issues: data availability, agreement on e.g. data exchange model, commerical.

Access to sufficient network bandwidth supporting exchange.

www.wmo.int

Thank you for your attentionDaniel Michelson

Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute

Norrköping, Sweden

daniel.michelson@smhi.se