Southeast European Directors of the NMHSs take the ownership over the Multi-Hazard Early Warning System-Advisory initiative
Annually the WMO Members from South East Europe convene in informal conferences on the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) directors level. The host is taking over the chairmanship for one year from a meeting to another.
This year, the meeting was hosted in Brdo in Slovenia by the director of the NMHS of Slovenia. The meeting discussed the progress in the implementation of a range of WMO initiatives, including the Multi-Hazard Early Warning Advisory System project for SEE as well as the related challenges and opportunities for its advancement. Previously the project benefited by financial support of the World Bank and the European Commission and now time has arrived for the beneficiaries to take the ownership over the process and share responsibilities.
While Croatia, Israel, Romania and Slovenia decided to take the leadership for several components of high importance, such as radar observations, numerical weather predictions of high resolutions, and training activities, European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) and European Flood Alert System kindly agreed to provide support for the hydrological modelling activities. Furthermore, the ECMWF will provide technical maintenance of Common Information Platform and Database. This activity will benefit by a two year financial support from the World Meteorological Organization.
The next meeting of the Group will focus on data policy and will further consider the possible contributions to mid and low level priorities. The actions will be reflected in the WMO RA VI workplan for 2023-2025 as contribution to the EW4ALL initiative.