Nowcasting for Africa: advances, potential and value - CentAUR

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Nowcasting for Africa: advances, potential and value - CentAUR
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and value
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Roberts, A. J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4970-9032,
Fletcher, J. K., Groves, J., Marsham, J. H., Parker, D. J.,
Blyth, A. M., Adefisan, E. A., Ajayi, V. O., Barrette, R., Coning,
E., Dione, C., Diop, A., Foamouhoue, A. K., Gijben, M., Hill, P.
G. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9745-2120, Lawal, K.
A., Mutemi, J., Padi, M., Popoola, T. I., Rípodas, P., Stein, T.
H. M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9215-5397 and
Woodhams, B. J. (2021) Nowcasting for Africa: advances,
potential and value. Weather. ISSN 0043-1656 doi:
https://doi.org/10.1002/wea.3936 Available at
http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/98503/

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Published version at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wea.3936
To link to this article DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wea.3936

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Nowcasting for Africa: advances, potential and value - CentAUR
Nowcasting for Africa: advances,
                  potential and value
Alexander J. Roberts1,2 ,                      11
                                                 Numerical Weather and Climate                    events but poor in terms of existing forecast-

                                                                                                                                                   Weather – Month 9999, Vol. 99, No. 99
                                                 Prediction Unit, Nigerian Meteorological         ing facilities’. At the time, nowcasting in
Jennifer K. Fletcher1,2,                         Agency (NiMet), Abuja, Nigeria                   some countries had been performed for
James Groves2,                                 12
                                                 University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya            almost a decade, driven in part by the
                                                                                                  increasing prevalence of rainfall radars.
John H. Marsham1,2,                            13
                                                 Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet),
                                                                                                  The lack of radars in the tropics prevented
                                                 Accra, Ghana
Douglas J. Parker1,                            14
                                                 NiMet Regional Training Centre (RTC),
                                                                                                  similar nowcasting activities. However, this
                                                                                                  period also marks the beginning of satellite
Alan M. Blyth2, Elijah A.                        Lagos, Nigeria                                   Earth observations. This is not overlooked
Adefisan3, Vincent O.                          15
                                                 Agencia Estatal de Meteorología                  in Browning’s book and there are three
                                                 (AEMET), Madrid, Spain                           chapters dedicated to the use of satellites
Ajayi4, Ronald Barrette5,                                                                         for nowcasting (Kelly et al., 1982; Shapiro
Estelle de Coning6,                                                                               et al., 1982; Smith et al., 1982)
                                               GCRF African SWIFT
Cheikh Dione3,                                                                                       Satellite Earth observations have been
                                                                                                  available in the intervening 39 years.
                                               The Global Challenges Research Fund
Abdoulahat Diop7, Andre                        (GCRF) African SWIFT (Science for Weather          However, there are almost no automated
K. Foamouhoue3, Morne                          Information and Forecasting Techniques)            operational nowcasting systems used in
                                               project is a £9 million programme of work          Africa today. Nowcasting performed by
Gijben8, Peter G. Hill9 ,                      led by the National Centre for Atmospheric         the South African Weather Service (SAWS)
Kamoru A. Lawal10,11,                          Science (NCAS) at the University of Leeds,         being a notable exception (de Coning
                                               United Kingdom. SWIFT focuses on forecast-         et al., 2015; Gijben and de Coning, 2017).
Joseph Mutemi12,                               ing research for sub-Saharan Africa across         The WMO Nowcasting Guidelines (World
Michael Padi13, Temidayo                       temporal scales from hours to seasons, as          Meteorological Organization [WMO], 2017)
                                                                                                  outline that: [in] ‘data-sparse regions, “low-
I. Popoola4,14, Pilar                          well as capacity building for four partner
                                               countries (Figure 1; Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria       cost” nowcasting systems are created by using
Rípodas15, Thorwald                            and Kenya). SWIFT brings together scien-           satellite and lightning data (blended with
                                                                                                  numerical weather prediction)’. This is not
H.M. Stein9 and Beth J.                        tists and meteorologists from 10 African
                                                                                                  true for most of Africa where nowcasting is
                                               and five UK-based organisations with the
Woodhams1                                      World Meteorological Organization (WMO)            manual: viewing satellite imagery, calculat-
1
 Institute for Climate and Atmospheric         as an advisory partner (full list here https://    ing storm speeds and predicting storm posi-
  Science, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK      africanswift.org/about/). Each African coun-       tions, usually limited to aviation purposes.
2
 National Centre for Atmospheric               try has their national meteorological service         The fact that nowcasting technology, data
                                               (NMS) and one university as partners.              and guidelines have existed for many years
  Science, Leeds, UK
3
 African Centre of Meteorological                 A major research theme of SWIFT is the
                                               improved use of satellite data, especially in
  Application for Development (ACMAD),
                                               the context of nowcasting. Nowcasting is
  Niamey, Niger                                the evaluation of the current weather and
4
 Federal University of Technology Akure        the production of short term predictions to
  (FUTA), Akure, Nigeria                       provide warnings. A more detailed definition
5
 Kenya Meteorological Department               of African nowcasting is provided in Box 1.
  (KMD), Nairobi, Kenya
6
 World Meteorological Organisation
  (WMO), Geneva, Switzerland
                                               Nowcasting for Africa:
7
 Agence Nationale de l’Aviation Civile et de   A missed opportunity
  la Météorologie (ANACIM), Dakar, Senegal     Almost 50 years of nowcasting
8
 South African Weather Service –
                                               In the preface to the book Nowcasting
  Research, Pretoria, South Africa             (Browning, 1982), Keith Browning laments
9
 Department of Meteorology, University         that ‘the relative lack of material [at the 1981
  of Reading, Reading, UK                      nowcasting symposium] from the Tropics is
10
  African Climate and Development              regrettable, because nowcasting methods
  Initiative (ACDI), University of Cape        based on remote sensing are likely to prove        Figure 1. Map of African continent with GCRF
  Town, Cape Town, South Africa                particularly helpful in areas rich in mesoscale    African SWIFT partner countries marked.                                     1
Nowcasting for Africa: advances, potential and value - CentAUR
Box 1: A definition of African nowcasting
                                              Nowcasting is the description of the current state of the atmosphere and predictions for the next few hours (WMO, 2017). More
                                              detailed definitions are hard to find, because the process varies regionally and according to the availability of data. The authors
                                              propose that African nowcasting be defined using three criteria:
                                                1. Nowcasting includes analysis of near-real-time observations, to describe current weather conditions.
    Nowcasting for Africa

                                                2. Nowcasting forward propagates observed weather features, by extrapolation but also more sophisticated methods using a
                                                wide range of data and dynamical understanding.
                                                3. Nowcasting requires continued monitoring made possible by a rapid workflow of data acquisition, processing and the
                                                dissemination of warnings and updates.
                                              In addition, nowcasting is typically:
                                                 • Applied to high impact weather, such as thunderstorms and lightning, fog and atmospheric dust.
                                                 • Focussed on stakeholders who are vulnerable to those events such as aviation and fisheries.
    Weather – Month 9999, Vol. 99, No. 99

                                                 • Focussed on localised forecast domains, so alerts for high-impact weather on the scale of hours can be accurate.
                                                 • Not strictly defined by a forward timescale as the utility of nowcasting techniques depends on the meteorological
                                                  phenomenon.
                                                 • Facilitated by computer systems that bring together disparate data and process them ready for human interpretation by
                                                  seasoned forecasters.

                                            without nowcasting becoming widespread,                In Africa, NMSs are often closely associ-    Satellite Application Facility on Support to
                                            suggests one of two possibilities: (1) there is     ated with or part of government depart-         NoWCasting and very short range forecasts
                                            little value in African nowcasting or (2) there     ments (Tall, 2010). Despite the political       (NWC SAF) software, known as NWCSAF/GEO
                                            are barriers to nowcasting. The first of these      capital of meteorological themes such as        can produce a large number of nowcasting
                                            points is clearly untrue as heavy rainfall,         food production, water resource manage-         products. It extracts useful information from
                                            strong winds and lightning are abundant             ment and public health, funding of NMSs         different satellite channels (and NWP data)
                                            in Africa. Therefore, we must conclude that         in Africa remains low (WMO, 2019). As such,     and generates combined products for now-
                                            there are conditions that prevent African           maintaining current systems is prioritised,     casting (see Figures 2(a) and (b) for examples
                                            nowcasting.                                         limiting funds available for investment to      and Figures S4-S6, S8 and S10 (available in
                                                                                                improve capacity. As such, training oppor-      the Supporting Information) for further infor-
                                                                                                tunities are not always abundant. This can      mation). These products give greater insight
                                            Barriers for African nowcasting                     prevent a critical mass of knowledge being      than simple visualisations and can be pro-
                                            Often, high impact weather is poorly rep-           reached, leaving NMSs vulnerable to the         duced rapidly in near-real-time. A number of
                                            resented by numerical weather prediction            loss of a few members of staff.                 products can also be temporally extrapolated.
                                            (NWP) methods. Recent work has shown                   The divergence in global uptake of              The authors are unaware of NWCSAF/GEO
                                            that global ensemble modelling systems              nowcasting in the twentieth century can         being run in Africa outside of the SAWS.
                                            typically show less skill than climatology          in part be attributed to existing infra-        While the SAWS products are for southern
                                            across West and central tropical Africa and         structure (television, radio, telecoms). The    Africa (up to the equator), and are shared
                                            that skill in eastern and southern Africa is        ability to disseminate warnings to almost       with nearby nations, there are many nations
                                            also low (Vogel et al., 2018, 2020). In par-        the entire population in Europe, North          within Africa whose forecasters do not have
                                            ticular, the ability to predict extremes can        America and Japan lent itself to now-           access to relevant nowcasting products.
                                            be especially poor (Vogel et al., 2020). Even       casting in a way not matched in Africa.         NWCSAF/GEO is not new; it has been freely
                                            convection permitting simulations (over             Thankfully, increased connectivity (espe-       available (over several iterations) for over
                                            East Africa) show low skill, with rainfall varia-   cially with respect to mobile communica-        10 years. The issues preventing its use within
                                            bility dominated by time of day (Woodhams           tions) means that this barrier is far smaller   Africa are largely due to the lack of knowl-
                                            et al., 2018). This increases the demand            than in previous decades. However, there        edge of how to implement and maintain the
                                            for nowcasting as a method of providing             are other technological barriers faced by       software and how to access satellite data
                                            extreme weather warnings.                           NMSs in Africa. SWIFT partner organisa-         from Preparation for the Use of Meteosat
                                               This is manifest as an aspiration to oper-       tions have regular issues of intermittent       in Africa (PUMA) systems.
                                            ate rainfall radars (Lamptey et al., 2009).         power and disrupted internet connectivity.         African NMSs have access to satellite data
                                            However, anecdotally, investment in radar           While solutions such as the use of uninter-     (as well as a raft of other observational and
                                            systems in Africa is often followed by a            ruptible power supplies or mobile internet      model data) via the EUMETCast service, a
                                            short operational period. Problems of fund-         failovers can provide some mitigation they      multicast system for the transmission of
                                            ing repairs or limited local expertise then         have associated costs and are untenable         data operated by EUMETSAT. Received data
                                            lead to equipment being non-operational             solutions for long-term operational use.        are generally managed within PUMA sys-
                                            for long periods or indefinitely. Once again,                                                       tems (Maathuis, 2017) and are visualised via
                                            the exception is the South African radar net-       African nowcasting data (and its                Synergie software (Le Gallou, 2017). While
                                            work. However, the maintenance difficulties                                                         the software allows users to navigate and
                                            faced by the SAWS are well documented               accessibility)                                  visualise a wide variety of data it is clear
                                            (Saltikoff, 2015; du Preez, 2017). Thus, Keith      The use of satellite data for nowcasting has    from communication with forecasters that
                                            Browning’s prediction that remote sensing           been recognised as providing an opportu-        there are a number of limitations.
                                            (satellite data) would be useful for tropical       nity, not so complex or expensive to preclude      Anecdotal evidence from forecasters in
2                                           nowcasting holds true even today.                   African NMSs (WMO, 2012). The EUMETSAT          SWIFT partner NMSs and the authors’ first-
Nowcasting for Africa: advances, potential and value - CentAUR
storm has been shown to be a poor pre-
                                                                                                            dictor of its future behaviour (Tsonis and
                                                                                                            Austin, 1981; Radhakrishna et al., 2012). As
                                                                                                            such, one method to enhance predictabil-
                                                                                                            ity is to consider the effects of known geo-
                                                                                                            graphic or atmospheric features. Examples
                                                                                                            include mountain ranges that enhance pre-

                                                                                                                                                              Nowcasting for Africa
                                                                                                            cipitation; sea, land and lake breezes pro-
                                                                                                            ducing convergence; or dry lines which are
                                                                                                            associated with storm triggering (Figure 3).
                                                                                                               Short, convection-permitting simulations
                                                                                                            are now feasible data sources for nowcast-
                                                                                                            ing systems (Bowler et al., 2006). NWP simu-
                                                                                                            lations initialised frequently and using data
                                                                                                            assimilation techniques are able to provide

                                                                                                                                                              Weather – Month 9999, Vol. 99, No. 99
                                                                                                            improvements over purely deterministic
                                                                                                            forecasts (Sun et al., 2014). Similarly, ensem-
                                                                                                            ble systems if initialised at short intervals
                                                                                                            have the potential to provide useful infor-
                                                                                                            mation. The interpretation of such simula-
                                                                                                            tions is inevitably probabilistic, as such this
                                                                                                            approach lends itself to the production of
                                                                                                            probabilistic risk nowcasts. Given the unpre-
                                                                                                            dictability of convective storms, this type of
                                                                                                            nowcast is appropriate for Africa but might
                                                                                                            prove a challenge to communicate to the
                                                                                                            public who often expect yes/no answers to
Figure 2. Examples of products available for nowcasting exercises during the SWIFT testbed 1b. All          questions like ‘will it rain?’.
panels show 1800 utc 2 May 2019. (a) is the NWCSAF/GEO rapidly developing thunderstorm (RDT)                   To predict storm triggering, fuzzy logic
product, (b) is the NWCSAF/GEO convective rainfall rate (CRR) product and (c) is the Met Office             systems can be used (Mueller et al., 2003;
provided Meteosat imagery where brightness temperature is shown with cold cloud-top tempera-                James et al., 2018). These represent the
tures indicated by a colour scale.                                                                          inherent uncertainty of the input data and
                                                                                                            through the application of rules (informed
hand experiences indicate that once within         readily viewable using Synergie and so, for              by statistical analyses, expert knowledge
the PUMA system, access to data is diffi-          the SWIFT partner NMSs at least, these files             and dynamical understanding) give proba-
cult. Users of the system are often unsure         continue to go unused and are automati-                  bilistic predictions of storm initiation.
as to what data they have access to and            cally deleted by the system.                                In contrast to these techniques (which are
can be unaware of the management of the                                                                     driven by a dynamical understanding), there
EUMETCast system. Some products cannot be                                                                   is now much research being focussed on
visualised via Synergie and so go unnoticed        Current nowcasting methods                               machine learning (Shi et al., 2017; Agrawal
and are automatically deleted without being        A feature common to modern operational                   et al., 2019; Lebedev et al., 2019; Tran and
used. The problem is compounded by the             nowcasting systems (including NWCSAF/                    Song, 2019), in particular convolutional neu-
automated management of incoming files,            GEO) is the automated forward propagation                ral networks (CNNs). This field holds great
including changing file names so they are dif-     of existing storms through the application of            promise for short-term prediction but gives
ferent from the ‘typical file names’ provided      storm motion or optical flow vectors (Dixon              limited opportunity to develop understand-
by EUMETCast and directory names that defy         and Wiener, 1993; Hand, 1996; Mueller                    ing of physical processes. To the authors’
simple common-sense navigation. Ingesting          et al., 2003; Sills et al., 2003; Bowler et al., 2004,
local data (e.g. local surface observations) to    2006; Brovelli et al., 2005; James et al., 2018).
display alongside received data is also com-       While extrapolation of this type can work
plicated and so is generally not attempted,        very well, it has limitations. It is well suited
hampering analysis and verification of satel-      to analysing frontal systems where features
lite or model data. Within Synergie configu-       all move in the same direction and at the
rations may be locked for forecasters and          same speed or if convective storms do not
settings for complex visualisations cannot be      change significantly in size or intensity over
saved to be used repeatedly. This means that       the extrapolation period. However, convec-
generating the most useful visualisations can      tive storms can vary significantly in their size
be time consuming for forecast staff.              and intensity over short periods of time. Also,
   In the summer of 2019, 10 years after           the extrapolation approach does not predict
NWCSAF/GEO was first released (and fol-            the triggering of new storms and as such has
lowing the release of a wide range of              a clear predictive limitation, especially in the
near-real-time products by the SWIFT pro-          tropics. That said, once storms transition into          Figure 3. A SAWS brightness temperature
ject) two products (Rapidly Developing             organised systems, forward propagation is                difference image (IR12.0–IR10.8) over South
Thunderstorms (RDT) and Convective                 likely to be a useful technique.                         Africa on 28 November 2013. A dry line is
Rainfall Rate (CRR)) were made available on           To better represent the development of                indicated on the image. This feature was
the EUMETCast African service. While this is       deep convective storms, some nowcasting                  associated with the initiation of a very large
a positive step, it has not been particularly      systems also represent growth and decay.                 convective system later the same day. (© 2019
useful. As with other products, they are not       However, the past state of a convective                  EUMETSAT.)                                                                   3
knowledge, no operational nowcasting sys-
                                            tems yet use CNN techniques. However, it
                                            seems likely that in the future CNNs will be
                                            a powerful tool for nowcasting.
                                               The role of human interpretation is also
                                            important to consider. Local forecasters that
                                            know the system they are using are able to
    Nowcasting for Africa

                                            adjust forward projections and account for
                                            spurious features prior to warnings being
                                            issued. Despite technological advances, the
                                            role of the human nowcaster remains an
                                            important step in the production of now-
                                            cast warnings.
    Weather – Month 9999, Vol. 99, No. 99

                                            SWIFT progress in the provi-
                                            sion of nowcasting products
                                            Testbeds
                                            SWIFT has a programme of weather fore-
                                            casting ‘testbeds’, bringing researchers and
                                            forecasters together in real-time forecasting
                                            settings (to the authors knowledge the first of
                                            their kind in Africa). Testbeds have been suc-    Figure 4. Photos from the GCRF African SWIFT Testbed 1b hosted at the IMTR at the KMD, Nairobi,
                                            cessful in the USA in accelerating the opera-     Kenya.
                                            tional use of new tools (Ralph et al., 2013).
                                            The SWIFT testbeds are helping to engender a
                                            sense of shared purpose across meteorologi-
                                            cal institutions from both Africa and the UK.
                                               SWIFT Testbed 1b was hosted in April/
                                            May 2019 at the Kenya Meteorological
                                            Department (KMD), Nairobi (Figure 4)
                                            and in partnership with the WMO-led
                                            High Impact Weather Lake System project
                                            (HIGHWAY). Testbed 1b produced opera-
                                            tional forecasts for East and West Africa
                                            and evaluated the use of data and tech-
                                            niques (Fletcher et al., 2020). The partici-
                                            pants represent a wealth of expertise in
                                            the fields of East and West African mete-
                                            orology. Researchers learnt about the
                                            techniques employed by forecasters and
                                            how meteorological fields are interpreted
                                            in specialised ways and forecasters were
                                            exposed to research ideas, products and
                                            techniques they had not previously used.
                                            This exchange of ideas was only possible
                                            due to the hard work of the participants
                                            and their willingness to share knowledge
                                            and learn from others. Nowcasting was one
                                            of the three main strands of Testbed 1b
                                            along with synoptic forecasting and fore-
                                            cast evaluation. These fed into one another:
                                            forecasts informed nowcasts and nowcast-
                                            ing products enabled the evaluation of
                                            earlier forecasts.
                                               The testbeds are a showcase for nowcast-
                                            ing products. A major achievement was the
                                            provision of NWCSAF/GEO products by NCAS          Figure 5. (a) The installation and position of the 2.4m C band satellite antenna located at the
                                            and the University of Leeds (Figures 2(a) and     Chilbolton observatory. (b) A schematic indicating the location of the hardware and processing
                                            (b) RDT and CRR respectively) and Meteosat        required to produce NWCSAF/GEO products and make images available for African forecasters and
                                            derived imagery (Figure 2(c)) and ATDNet          researchers.
                                            Sferics (lightning) by the UK Met Office. All
                                            these products were generated in the UK           Data is processed using NWCSAF/GEO and           are being produced with a typical latency
                                            and made available online for the testbed.        the resultant images are then catalogued         of 30min (the first time this has ever been
                                            A 2.4m satellite antenna has been installed       and made publicly available online (sci.ncas.    done for East and West Africa). The use of
4                                           at the Chilbolton Observatory, UK (Figure 5).     ac.uk/swift). At the time of writing, images     this system was, in part, to highlight what
is possible for African NMSs to achieve with     ­ roducts can be used as a resource to con-
                                                 p                                                a change in operating methods. SWIFT is
respect to operational nowcasting as much        duct research.                                   working with partner NMSs to help in the
of the equipment required is extant within                                                        use of the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)
NMSs and the rest is readily available and                                                        to disseminate warnings through a wide
relatively low cost.                             Nowcasting potential in Africa                   range of media. In addition to this, a SWIFT
   NWCSAF/GEO products provided by               There is great potential for increasing now-     extension project is working on an appli-
SWIFT have since been used operationally         casting capacity across Africa. The provision    cation programming interface (API) for use

                                                                                                                                                    Nowcasting for Africa
and during a joint SAtellite and Weather         of nowcasting products through SWIFT has         with mobile applications for the delivery of
Information for Disaster Resilience in Africa    allowed nowcasting to be possible opera-         nowcasting warnings (Forecasting African
(SAWIDRA) and the African Centre of              tionally across East and West Africa. However,   STorms Application (FASTA)), for which
Meteorological Application for Development       there is considerable work needed for African    African partner institutions will provide local
(ACMAD) forecast demonstration exercise.         NMSs to make nowcasting routine.                 meteorological expertise and warnings.
Feedback is currently being gathered with
the aim of improving visualisation methods
                                                 Training                                         Planning for the future
and providing development feedback to

                                                                                                                                                    Weather – Month 9999, Vol. 99, No. 99
NWC SAF.                                         A major element of making this a reality is      The Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satel-
                                                 training of future forecasters. Educational      lites represent a major technological step
                                                 centres such as partner universities, ACMAD,     forward and could greatly enhance oppor-
Building capacity to implement                                                                    tunities for nowcasting in Africa (Stuhlmann
                                                 the NiMet (Nigerian Meteorological Agency)
nowcasting in Africa                             Regional Training Centre (RTC), the KMD          et al., 2005). Specifically, the new lightning
The experience gained setting up the now-        Institute for Meteorological Training and        imager will provide information on electri-
casting system described above means that        Research (IMTR), Ecole Africaine de la           cally active storms across the whole con-
NCAS can provide advice and training to          Météorologie et de l’Aviation Civile (EAMAC)     tinent. However, the sheer scale of data
build capacity for operational nowcasting        and workshops run as part of the Severe          generated by the MTG satellites means that
in Africa. In August 2019, training was deliv-   Weather Forecasting Programme in regional        it is likely that the EUMETCast Africa ser-
ered to staff from the SWIFT partner institu-    specialised meteorological centres will not      vice (the primary source of forecast/nowcast
tions on how to set up receiving hardware        only educate forecasters in partner coun-        data for many African NMSs) will only con-
and run NWCSAF/GEO, this covered data            tries but more broadly across Africa. This       tain a subset of the data produced. SWIFT
preprocessing, software use, visualisation       ensures a legacy of nowcasting skills that       is working alongside NWC SAF, the SAWS
and automation. The supporting material          will outlast the SWIFT funding period.           and the WMO to highlight the effects of
for this course was provided as a website                                                         downgrading the Africa service and miti-
(https://sites.google.com/ncas.ac.uk/swift-                                                       gate the effect of subsetting satellite data to
safnwctraining). Further training scheduled
                                                 Development                                      protect nowcasting capability. It is currently
for June 2020 has been postponed due to          SWIFT development of additional nowcast-         still uncertain whether the introduction of
the Covid-19 global pandemic. Meanwhile          ing tools is ongoing; for example, investi-      MTG will be beneficial to African users.
technical support for groups managing local      gating methods for extending extrapolation
hardware and software is being provided.         lead-times for convective systems. It is sus-
                                                                                                  Value of satellite and
Alongside support and training there is an       pected that large, well-developed systems
ongoing discussion about getting NWCSAF/         that are able to persist for many hours (and     nowcasting research for Africa
GEO run operationally within African NMSs.       have the highest impact) are likely to be        The value of making automated nowcast-
Additionally, four satellite antennas have       predictable for several hours.                   ing products available to African NMSs is
been purchased for partner universities. The       While local generation of nowcasting           undoubtedly great. The manual approach
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and          products in Africa is a target, there is a       used for aviation safety is labour intensive
Technology (KNUST), Ghana have received          need to take an holistic approach to now-        and so is difficult to expand to national
and set up their receiving station. SWIFT        casting. Without a means of interrogating        scales. However, augmenting it with the
aims to facilitate African partners in com-      incoming data and enabling input from a          techniques discussed earlier and introducing
missioning and maintaining such systems.         forecaster, there is no way to easily gener-     automation will allow forecasters to produce
African ownership of these responsibilities      ate meaningful warnings. Similarly, without      warnings quickly for much wider regions.
will prevent reliance on UK generated prod-      a mechanism to rapidly distribute warnings          Many industries would benefit from
ucts beyond the lifetime of SWIFT (ending        the process of data collection, process-         greater access to warnings of imminent
December 2021).                                  ing, analysis and warning production is a        high impact weather that are currently not
   Communication between the University          waste of resources. Therefore, SWIFT is also     widely available from African NMSs. For
of Leeds/NCAS and NWC SAF is ongoing             involved in solutions to these issues.           example: the energy sector (wind, oil and
and there is mutual interest in collabora-         NCAS are already working alongside             gas), commercial/state logistics and haulage,
tion on the development/evaluation of            the UK Met Office in the development             ports, fisheries, military and agriculture to
NWCSAF/GEO and the delivery of train-            of FOREST (Forecast Observations and             name a few. NMSs could provide commercial
ing in Africa. SWIFT NWCSAF/GEO evalua-          Research Evaluation and Survey Toolkit).         nowcasting services; as such, this represents
tion work conducted at the University of         FOREST is a new visualisation tool devel-        potential new sources of funds.
Reading (Hill et al., 2020) helps us under-      oped by the UK Met Office as part of the            By improving their ability to produce and
stand how NWCSAF/GEO products should             Weather and Climate Science for Service          disseminate warnings there is the poten-
be used over Africa. The role of ACMAD           Partnership (WCSSP). The use of such a tool      tial to raise the public profile and trust in
within SWIFT will help to generate inter-        in Africa would be beneficial as it broad-       African NMSs. Skilled human interpreta-
est in using NWCSAF/GEO products and             ens access to model products and enables         tion of nowcasting fields is highly valuable
provide a pathway for future training in         visualisation of near-real-time nowcasting       for even the most advanced nowcasting
Africa. Nowcasting products have been            products produced locally.                       systems, as such, experienced forecasters
generated for SWIFT research case studies,         Dissemination on timescales useful for         play an important role in successful opera-
these will be useful to understand how such      nowcasting is a great challenge and requires     tional nowcasting. The wealth of forecasting                                 5
expertise within SWIFT partner NMSs means        up of new equipment and systems to                 Lamptey BL, Pandya RE, Warner TT.
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