PRODUCTION TOOL FOR FRENCH OVERSEAS TERRITORIES

Brigitte Bénech, Météo-France, Toulouse, France

and Pascal Venzac

Meteo-Factory: a modular system designed to deliver automatically to end-users the meteorological products and services they need

Overview

1. A system where the forecaster can fully focus on the heart of his expertise:

weather forecasting. where the production is designed to fit the customers’

requirements without extra load for the forecasting

2. A web-based and modular tool composed of three main modules

Weather data integration Integrated production system Monitoring and dissemination

system.

A web-based and modular tool composed of three main modules

Weather data integration (green)

Integrated production system(yellow)

Monitoring and dissemination (blue)

Meteo-Factory is linkedto Synergie for data access and graphical expertise production.Synergie is a French software supporting forecaster expertise and batch production

Weather data integration

The weather data are directly extracted from the Synergie server (models data, satellite pictures…) or from the expertise of the forecasters.

The forecasting module includes :

  MetEditor: creation or update of a weather forecast.

AwareMet: dealing with severe events and creating the awareness data

Reports: editing texts in separate blocks that will also be stored in the data base

All outputs from these three expertise modules (MetEditor, AwareMet and Reports) are sent to the production data base, and will be used to create the final products.

Forecaster has first to select the right model to initialize the data base. He also can recall the previous forecast.Then, he has to deal with a board to display the data.

Weather data integrationMetEditor

Parameters

Time range navigation

You can select time stamped values by 2 different navigation modes:>Parameters navigation>Time range navigationNo more than 4 values at the same time

Forecast for the:

Significant weather

Rain amount over 6 hours

Assign one pictogram to an areaOr to all the country

Cloudiness

Weather data integration

The area number 1 is an object. All locations within this area will have the same significant weather: overcast and rainy

1

Weather parameters can also be initialized through objects which have previously been drawn by the forecasters on Synergie work stations

Weather data integration AwareMet: dealing with severe events

and creating the awareness data

Awareness chart for New Caledonia1

2

3

4

To selectthe event type

To select and assign a pictogram

To select the color level

To write a report

Weather data integration Reports

To write down the forecasts

For today

For tomorrow

A report iscomposed of as many blocksas necessary for the end-users production.

Each block has a title (Wind, Swell, General situation, Marine forecast…)

The name of the report and this title will be used in the templates of the products as a link to the data base and to the text written by the forecaster

Integrated production system

Some examples of available products

Click right on the image

In the final product,the image will be replacedby the actual icon of the parameter,on the area and at the time range selected inObject properties

parameterarea

Time-range

Integrated production system

Template of a Met gram

A template defines which data will be displayed in the product. It defines also the format of data and the layout of the product.

It is possible to modify templatesor to create one’s own templates with a Vector Graphics Editor, SVG Compliant and open source.

Monitoring and dissemination

The purpose of the monitoring function is to:    check the products generations and publications on the production server check the integration of Synergie products into the production server check the input and output of products through the dissemination server

Production monitoring board, concerning the production of reports. The colour of the lines is linked to the production time and deadline

Monitoring and dissemination The customer dissemination management facility allows the administrator to

manage the list of customers, broadcast groups and broadcast parameters (email, ftp and/or fax)

Conclusions

Meteo-Factory has been installed in French overseas territories in 2008 and new methods of production are still being defined and organised.

The production tasks are being re organised to take advantage of this new tool.

An upgrade is planned in 2009 to add new functionalities: automatic alert messages based on meteorological thresholds, SMS dissemination, and particularly an attractive web production for dynamic websites

In 2010 we should also improve the forecasting module,so as to extent the ability of initialization with “objects”