WIPPS-GCW Workshop on Snow Prediction and Evaluation
Montréal, Canada
Building on the discussions from the GCW-WIPPS Workshop held on 3–5 December 2024, this workshop focuses on advancing snow prediction and evaluation within the WIPPS framework. It will review existing capabilities, identify user requirements and gaps across short-range, medium-range, and sub-seasonal to seasonal timescales, and develop action plans with clear milestones and timelines for snow prediction products. The workshop will also finalize selected pilot project proposal for submission to SC-WIPPS and provide recommendations to AG-GCW on supporting these projects, ensuring stronger collaboration and continued progress in snow prediction and evaluation.
For detailed information on the workshop—including its goals, main outputs, and the list of participants—please refer to the concept note.
For more information for some agenda items, please refer provisional annotated agenda
This is a hybrid meeting, and you can join the meeting at Join the meeting.
The presentation template is available.
Venue (Address): 305 René-Levesque Ouest, Montréal, Québec
Time in Agenda: Local time (UTC-5)
Provisional Agenda
Note for speakers: Please limit your presentation to a maximum of 15 minutes to allow 10 minutes for discussion and follow-up.
Monday, 8 December 2025 | |
|---|---|
| 09:00 – 10:30 | Visit Hydro-Québec Note: Participants will directly meet at the following address at 08:45. After this visit, they will move to the next venue. Address: 75, boulevard René-Lévesque Ouest, Montréal, Québec |
| 10:30 – 11:00 | REGISTRATION and HEALTH BREAK |
| 11:00 – 11:30 | 1. OPENING – Chair: Yuki Honda Welcoming remarks – Michel Jean (P/IFCOM) Welcoming remarks – TBD (ECCC) Roundtable introduction – All participants |
| 11:30 – 11:40 | 2. ORGANIZATION OF THE MEETING – Chair: Shawn Marshall 2.1 Adoption of the agenda 2.2 Working arrangements |
| 11:40 – 12:30 | 3. STRATEGIC OVERVIEW OF WIPPS AND GCW ACTIVITIES – Chair: Shawn Marshall 3.1 Overview of INFCOM and the mandate and priorities of SC-WIPPS – Secretariat 3.2 Key priorities of AG-GCW for 2024-2027 – Shawn Marshall |
| 12:30 – 14:00 | LUNCH BREAK |
| 14:00 – 14:50 | 3.3 PCAPS Activities in Snow Modeling and Prediction – Jørn Kristiansen (Met Norway) 3.4 Review of the Roadmap for the integration of cryosphere information and products in the WIPPS and outcome of the last workshop – Rodica Nitu/Shawn Marshall |
| 14:50 – 15:40 | 4. UPDATES ON WEATHER AND CLIMATE PREDICTION AND VERIFICATION OF SNOW FOR CRYOSPHERE – Chair: Arun Kumar 4.1 Review of the progress of WIPPS activities, focusing on products and their verification – Weather – Amin Erfani 4.2 Review of the progress of WIPPS activities, focusing on products and their verification – Climate – Arun Kumar |
| 15:40 –16:10 | HEALTH BREAK |
| 16:10 –17:00 | 4.3 A reproducible data-driven workflow for probabilistic seasonal streamflow forecasting in snow-fed river basins across North America – Louise Kreissig-Arnal 4.4 Cryosphere developments at ECMWF: Advances in physical modelling, machine learning, and observation usage – Gabriele Arduini |
| 17:00 | CLOSURE OF DAY 1 |
| 19:00 –21:00 | SOCIAL DINNER (SELF-FUNDED) |
Tuesday, 9 December 2025 | |
| 08:30 – 10:10 | 6. EXPLORING FUTURE CRYOSPHERE PRODUCTS AND PILOT PROJECTS FOR CRYOSPHERIC HAZARDS – Chair: Vijay Kumar Soni 6.1 Update the requirements of TPRCC users to SC-WIPPS and AG-GCW, summarizing the outcomes of TPCF-4 (1–2 December 2025) – Lijuan Ma - online 6.2 Prediction of snow hazards in pastoral areas – Tao Che - online 6.3 Pilot Project on Glacier Hazards - Weicai Wang and Minghu Ding - online 6.4 Further discussion on pilot projects |
| 10:10 –10:40 | HEALTH BREAK |
| 10:40 –11:55 | 4. UPDATES ON WEATHER AND CLIMATE PREDICTION AND VERIFICATION OF SNOW FOR CRYOSPHERE - continued – Chair: Arun Kumar 4.5 Advances on satellite snow mapping with a focus on snow verification/evaluation perspectives – Ludovic Brucker - online 4.6 Use and need for WIPPS products on snow, based on the practice in Morocco – Meriem Alaouri 4.7 Verification of snow and its data requirement: in-situ, remote and reanalysis – Vincent Vionnet |
| 11:55 - 12:20 | 5. WIPPS PILOT PROJECT ON ADVANCES IN MODELING COLD REGION HYDROLOGIC PROCESSES – Chair: Vincent Fortin 5.1 Overview of WIPPS Pilot Projects: Operations and Strategic Contributions – François Engelbrecht - online |
| 12:20 – 14:00 | LUNCH BREAK |
| 14:00 – 15:40 | 5.2 Overview of the pilot project including structure for Unifying Multiple Modelling Alternatives (SUMMA) – Martyn Clark 5.3 Data requirement for forcing (focusing on atmospheric) the model which to identify whether the connection to the WIPPS-DCs’ products – Vincent Vionnet 5.4 Representation of snow-cover processes in ECCC land surface models – Vincent Vionnet 5.5 Where and how to implement the outcomes of the pilot project to operational system, especially for SWE prediction in the context of WIPPS – Vincent Fortin |
| 15:40 – 16:10 | HEALTH BREAK |
| 16:10 – 17:00 | 7. DISCUSSION ON ACTION ITEMS MADE AT THE GCW-WIPPS WORKSHOP IN DECEMBER 2024 – Chair: Arun Kumar 7.1 A catalogue of existing WIPPS cryosphere products, including coverage, resolution, quality, and gaps – Arun Kumar 7.2 Guidelines for verifying WIPPS snow products and assessing forecast reliability – Vincent Vionnet |
| 17:00 | CLOSURE OF DAY 2 |
Wednesday, 10 December 2025 | |
| 09:00 – 10:15 | 7. DISCUSSION ON ACTION ITEMS MADE AT THE GCW-WIPPS WORKSHOP IN DECEMBER 2024 – Chair: Arun Kumar 7.3 A prioritized list of variables and products to be added to WIPPS centres to address emerging user needs – Vijay Kumar Soni 7.4 Technical guidance on harmonizing the exchange of variables, data formats, and processing methods across models – Arun Kumar 7.5 Update of the draft proposal of WIPPS Pilot Project – Martyn Clark |
| 10:15 – 10:45 | HEALTH BREAK |
| 10:45 – 12:30 | 8. DEVELOP ACTION PLANS WITH TIMELINES, MILESTONES, AND RESPONSIBILITIES TO IMPLEMENT THE CRYOSPHERE REQUEST ON WIPPS – Chair: Shawn Marshall and Arun Kumar |
| 12:30 – 14:00 | LUNCH BREAK |
| 14:00 – 14:45 | 8. DEVELOP ACTION PLANS WITH TIMELINES, MILESTONES, AND RESPONSIBILITIES TO IMPLEMENT THE CRYOSPHERE REQUEST ON WIPPS - continued – Chair: Shawn Marshall and Arun Kumar |
| 14:45 – 15:30 | 9. IMPLEMENTATION PLAN BY AG-GCW – Chair: Shawn Marshall, Jørn Kristiansen, and Vijay Kumar Soni |
| 15:30 – 16:00 | HEALTH BREAK |
| 16:00 – 16:45 | 9. IMPLEMENTATION PLAN BY AG-GCW - continued – Chair: Shawn Marshall, Jørn Kristiansen, and Vijay Kumar Soni |
| 16:45 – 17:00 | 10. CLOSING – Chair: Arun Kumar |
| 17:00 | END OF THE WORKSHOP |