Finland supports Tanzania to become East-African leader in numerical weather prediction
Photo: Pixabay.Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) supports Tanzanian Meteorological Authority (TMA) to become East-African knowhow leader in Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP). With the support of FMI, the NWP team of TMA has increased its capacity in deterministic and seasonal forecasting as well as forecast verification.
Now TMA is taking the leading role in NWP model development and training within the East African region.
FINKERAT project manager Anne Hirsikko summarizes: "I am happy how the forecast modelling experts of TMA have taken the ownership of project implementation. During the past year of our collaboration, they have lifted their numerical weather prediction skills to the level where they can act as East African knowhow leader and trainer. This ensures sustainability in NWP skills and development in the region. The most important is that skill score in severe weather forecasting is foreseen to improve through enhanced local scale numerical prediction."
FMI has long traditions in supporting sister organizations in developing countries to modernize their weather services and forecasting skills. The FINKERAT project engages Tanzanian, Kenyan and Rwandan national hydrometeorological services (NHMS) to enhance national and regional skills in severe weather forecasting and NWP modelling.
Practical lessons were shared between sister organizations
Each FINKERAT country NHMS operates with Weather Research Forecast (WRF) model. Through the FINKERAT project FMI has supported the sister organizations to develop their technical, computational and scientific skills in severe weather forecasting to a new level. Currently, FINKERAT countries operates WRF model automatically and verify the forecasts with an open access Hirlam Aladin R Package (HARP) tool.
Now TMA is taking the leading role in NWP development and training within the East African region. During the last week of June 2024 in Dar Es Salaam, FINKERAT project, in collaboration with the WMO CREWS East Africa project, organized a hands-on workshop where Kenyan, Tanzanian and Ugandan NWP experts worked together towards automating WRF verification with HARP tool in each NHMS. The workshop trainer Mr. Janne Kauhanen from FMI assisted by Mr. Alfred Kondowe from TMA supported Ugandan and Kenyan delegations in HARP verification tool implementation through guiding as well as sharing processing algorithms and their experience.
"This workshop highlighted the expertise there is in Tanzania to support the sister organizations of East African region to develop further NWP skills", FMI NWP expert Janne Kauhanen summarizes the recent workshop.
More information:
Project Manager Anne Hirsikko, Finnish Meteorological Institute, anne.hirsikko@fmi.fi, tel. + 358 50 420 5345