The Nowcasting Project/ Meso-Analyst Role as Developed at the UK Met Office
LOCATION
Virtual - Hosted on Zoom
Many significant surface water flooding events are associated with heavy showers and thunderstorms in the warmer seasons, these are cumulatively often one of the most costly weather related impacts hazards to affect the UK each year. Unfortunately, because of the hit and miss (chaotic nature) of showers and thunderstorms these sorts of impacts are very challenging to pinpoint and then message with much lead time, giving the public and responders only very limited lead to take mitigating actions. As a result the long term (3 years) percentage of National Severe Weather Warnings (NSWW) that have been independently assessed to have given good or excellent guidance in such convective weather events is only around 40-50%, whereas for all NSWWS hazards combined this figure is usually between 80-90% (fluctuates month to month).
Since 2019 the UK Met Office have been tasked to both improve the raw warning scores, but also the communications to responders and public around such events. The effort to improve in this sphere has been called the “Nowcasting Project” and has led to the development of the new role of the “Mesoanalyst role”. One key element of this has been to develop our capability in this sphere, to upskill the knowledge base and competencies of the Operational Meteorology profession, to source and improve access new meteorological data, to improve (significantly speed up) communication processes, and to put a renewed focus on the importance detailed mesoscale and storm-scale analysis of the environment. This all allows us (in some cases) to be able to better anticipate impacts in areas often sub-county size that are at risk from seeing impacts in the short term (0-3 hours), allowing some improved higher impact NSWWS provision, and supplementary communications, hopefully allowing people, more lead time, to take mitigating actions to protect life and property.
This talk gave a background to this problem, talked through some of the solutions that have been developed and are currently in development, and walked through an example of this Nowcasting / Mesoanalyst capability in action.
Speaker
Mr Nick Silkstone, Met Office
Nick Silkstone has worked for the UK Met Office in various Operational Meteorology roles since 2008. In that time he’s worked widely across the UK and overseas, including places such as Antarctica, and St Helena Island. He currently works as a Deputy Chief Operational Meteorologist in the Met Office’s Exeter HQ, covering roles such as the UK Medium Range (days 2+), Global Guidance Unit (covering UK interests overseas), and in recent years has been heavily involved with the Nowcasting / Mesoanalyst initiative. This project has been targeted at improving very short range (0-6 hours) forecasting of summertime showers and thunderstorms.
Registration
REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED
If you have any queries with regards to this event or require any further information please contact us at meetings@rmets.org.
Many significant surface water flooding events are associated with heavy showers and thunderstorms in the warmer seasons, these are cumulatively often one of the most costly weather related impacts hazards to affect the UK each year. Unfortunately, because of the hit and miss (chaotic nature) of showers and thunderstorms these sorts of impacts are very challenging to pinpoint and then message with much lead time, giving the public and responders only very limited lead to take mitigating actions. As a result the long term (3 years) percentage of National Severe Weather Warnings (NSWW) that have been independently assessed to have given good or excellent guidance in such convective weather events is only around 40-50%, whereas for all NSWWS hazards combined this figure is usually between 80-90% (fluctuates month to month).
Since 2019 the UK Met Office have been tasked to both improve the raw warning scores, but also the communications to responders and public around such events. The effort to improve in this sphere has been called the “Nowcasting Project” and has led to the development of the new role of the “Mesoanalyst role”. One key element of this has been to develop our capability in this sphere, to upskill the knowledge base and competencies of the Operational Meteorology profession, to source and improve access new meteorological data, to improve (significantly speed up) communication processes, and to put a renewed focus on the importance detailed mesoscale and storm-scale analysis of the environment. This all allows us (in some cases) to be able to better anticipate impacts in areas often sub-county size that are at risk from seeing impacts in the short term (0-3 hours), allowing some improved higher impact NSWWS provision, and supplementary communications, hopefully allowing people, more lead time, to take mitigating actions to protect life and property.
This talk gave a background to this problem, talked through some of the solutions that have been developed and are currently in development, and walked through an example of this Nowcasting / Mesoanalyst capability in action.
Speaker
Mr Nick Silkstone, Met Office
Nick Silkstone has worked for the UK Met Office in various Operational Meteorology roles since 2008. In that time he’s worked widely across the UK and overseas, including places such as Antarctica, and St Helena Island. He currently works as a Deputy Chief Operational Meteorologist in the Met Office’s Exeter HQ, covering roles such as the UK Medium Range (days 2+), Global Guidance Unit (covering UK interests overseas), and in recent years has been heavily involved with the Nowcasting / Mesoanalyst initiative. This project has been targeted at improving very short range (0-6 hours) forecasting of summertime showers and thunderstorms.
Registration
REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED
If you have any queries with regards to this event or require any further information please contact us at meetings@rmets.org.