Vesa Nietosvaara - Meteorological Simulator for Training
Presenters: Natasa Strelec Mahovic and Vesa Nietosvaara
Workshop (1 hr)
Description: Meteorological simulators have been used for quite many years in training events. The simulators present a saved weather situation, that the meteorologist investigates by using the given meteorological data, preparing forecasts while the time goes on and more data comes in. EUMETSAT has recently developed a simple meteorological simulator that runs on European Weather Cloud (EWC), allowing the simulator to be available for anyone willing to build such exercises. During the CALMet conference, we will demonstrate our simulator at the workshop and exchange experiences with the CALMet community. We will also share a small test dataset with the participants, so that they can try building a simulator on their PC.
Co-author/Co-Presenter
Natasa Strelec Mahovic, EUMETSAT
LINK to the workshop session will follow.
Briefly about simulators
Meteorological simulators have been used for quite many years in training events. The simulators present a canned weather situation, that the user investigates by using the given meteorological data, preparing forecasts while the time goes on and more data comes in.
The objective of these simulator exercises is to give an opportunity for meteorologists to work with a real data for a real case, and to prepare forecasts and verify them. By doing this, they will have a more engaging learning experience than just by viewing a case study presentation.
For the meteorological trainers and assessors, the simulators offer a way to assess the participants' competencies, and to help the participants practice in a safe environment the correct procedures during high impact weather events. An important part of simulation is to offer an authentic working environment, where the data flows in as it does in an operational environment. To build such an authentic working environment may be tedious. It takes time to retrieve the meteorological data for the case, to build the user interface and to organize the data in the interface.
EUMETSAT has recently developed a simple meteorological simulator that runs on European Weather Cloud (EWC), allowing the simulator to be available for anyone willing to build simulator exercises. During the CALMet conference, we will demonstrate this simulator and exchange experiences with the CALMet community. We hope that the simulator will be a useful contribution to a wider WMO Global Campus community.
Our Workshop at CALMet
At this session, we will first show some examples of SIMs prepared with the new SIM Creator and used at recent training courses.
You can download a small test dataset to try SIM Creator yourself. We will use it at the workshop.
No installation of software is needed. Finally, we will point you to the resources and user guide on how to learn to make your own simulator exercises. The simulator creator is open for anyone to use in meteorological training.
Resources
Simulations for meteorological training and assessment . WMO GLobal Campus Innovations, Vol. IV, Technology-enhanced Learning. Pages 18-27.
Simulator creator at European Weather Cloud