Romanian National Meteorological Administration | Presenter: Oana Nicola

Authors: Andrei Diamandi, Oana Nicola, Alina Ristea

NWCSAF at NMA: Evolution of the processing chain and

visualization of the products

NWCSAF 2015 USERS’ WORKSHOP

ROMANIAN NATIONAL METEOROLOGICAL ADMINISTRATION

2004 - 2006 2007 - 2010 2011 - 2014 2014 - onwards What should we expect from the future? Conclusions

Outline

NWCSAF 2015 USERS’ WORKSHOP

Romanian National Meteorological Administration

SAFNWC /MSG v1.0 available to users in 2004

Pre-operational implementation:

- SUN Ultra 60 (512 MB RAM, 1 CPU)

- SUN Solaris 8 OS

- F95 Compiler, C++, …

- PGE’s exported from HDF to Tiff

NWP data: ECMWF

- REGION Romania

- REGION_CENTRE_P 500,2300

- REGION_SIZE 700,1300

2004 – 2006 “Episode I”

Romanian National Meteorological Administration

Operational (2006)

SUN Ultra 60 (1 GB RAM, 1 CPU)

SUN Solaris 8 OS

F95 Compiler, C++, …

PGE’s exported from HDF to Tiff

NWCSAF 2015 USERS’ WORKSHOP

2004 – 2006 “Episode I” Processing Chain & Data Flow

Romanian National Meteorological Administration

2004 – 2006 “Episode I”

Romanian National Meteorological Administration

SAFNWC/MSG products couldn’t be displayed by the forecaster’s visualization system (neX-REAP) since it couldn’t handle other color schemes than those built in…

The forecaster had to display the products on a separate computer/screen

No converter for BUFR/GRIB products to image

Expensive computer system (SUN Workstation)

Difficult to evaluate the products when one cannot overlay meteorological fields, etc.

However, forecasters quite enthusiast and willing to use the products

NWCSAF 2015 USERS’ WORKSHOP

“New” (but more powerful h/w)

– SUN Enterprise 3500 (2GB RAM, 4 CPU)

– SAFNWC/MSG v2008

– Operational (2008)

First Linux machine

– Fedora Core

– SAFNWC/MSG v2009

– Operational (2010)

EUMETCAST hot standby system

2007 - 2010 Linux – “A New Hope”

Romanian National Meteorological Administration

NWCSAF 2015 USERS’ WORKSHOP

And finally Linux!

An easier installation of the NWCSAF/MSG

Cheaper hardware (Workstation/Desktop PC)

Separate production and development machines

NWCSAF/MSG accessible to more people

Backup machine now affordable

Free software! (compilers, OS)

And a lot of enthusiasm!

But… still not possible to visualize the products on the forecaster’s system (obviously not NWCSAF/MSG software’s fault)

2007 - 2010 Linux – “A New Hope”

Romanian National Meteorological Administration

NWCSAF 2015 USERS’ WORKSHOP

SAFNWC/MSG virtualization

Vmware ESXi 3.5

Fujitsu-Siemens TX200 S4 (2x Intel Xeon, 16 GB RAM…)

VM operational

Benefits:– Shorter downtimes –> in case of malfunction, just fire up a clone of the most recent functioning VM– Easy to install new versions of the SAFNWC/MSG -> use a pre-configured copy of your favorite OS as a

VM– Handy for testing new configurations /experiment– Can run production and development VM’s on the same h/w– Easy backup/transfer

Drawbacks: VM proliferation -> rare, only if one easily get attached to objects

2011 - 2014 “Attack of the Clones”

Romanian National Meteorological Administration

NWCSAF 2015 USERS’ WORKSHOP

2011 - 2014 “Attack of the Clones”

Romanian National Meteorological Administration

The EUMETCast system & the

SAFNWC VM farm

NWCSAF 2015 USERS’ WORKSHOP

Product Visualization & Integration:– Still not possible to ingest the PGE’s in the nexREAP visualization system -> one

more display on the forecaster’s desk, thin appetite for new products and even thinner for validation/evaluation

– Hopes rise in 2014 with the announcement of a new forecaster visualization system for 2015 - 2016

– It has been decided however to give a try to the ADAGUC -> might not replace a full fledged visualization system but it could certainly come close; badly needed in order to help “reboot” forecasters interest in both evaluation/validation and operational use of NWCSAF products

2011 - 2014 “Attack of the Clones”

Romanian National Meteorological Administration

NWCSAF 2015 USERS’ WORKSHOP

The focus is foreseen to be less on the processing chains (the technology is quite mature) but more on the evaluation/validation/utilization/integration of the SAFNWC products

The evaluation/validation requires not only a proper visualization system but also toolboxes capable to easily create scenarios for automated validation using long product time series (short time series and case studies are useful but not enough) -> will become a “must” with MTG’s 5/2.5 min scan, 1(2) km resolution

2015 – onwards “The Force Awakens”

Romanian National Meteorological Administration

NWCSAF 2015 USERS’ WORKSHOP

More data (MTG: 1km/2km resolution, 16 channels) and more often (5/2.5 min scans) -> more products (old + new)

Higher demand for accurate/ real-time products

As a result, more CPU’s will be needed quite soon

However, if Moore’s law still holds, computing power should not be an issue

But what about Time? Will it be still possible for a human to use in nowcasting 2 (or 3?) dozens of new products coming every 2.5 minutes?

(Semi) automated nowcasting systems will certainly help, but complex visualization systems will still be needed in both operational meteorology and product evaluation/validation

What should we expect from the future?

Romanian National Meteorological Administration

NWCSAF 2015 USERS’ WORKSHOP

10 years of SAFNWC have been challenging in many ways but exciting and rewarding

The next 10 look even more interesting

There are many things we could have done better and faster

We have been learning a lot and teach others some

Conclusions

Romanian National Meteorological Administration

NWCSAF 2015 USERS’ WORKSHOP

Thank you!

Romanian National Meteorological Administration

NWCSAF 2015 USERS’ WORKSHOP