- 16.05.2012 BALTRAD+ User Forum I
Project title: An advanced weather radar network for the Baltic Sea Region: BALTRAD+
Application call: 9
Priority: 2. Internal and external accessibility
Project website: www.baltrad.eu

Lead Partner:
Sveriges Meteorologiska och Hydrologiska InstitutFolkborgsvägen 1
60176 Norrköping
SE
Ilmar Karro
E-mail: ilmar.karro@smhi.se
Phone: +46 11 495 8416
Fax: +46 11 495 8001
Project Manager:
Sveriges Meteorologiska och Hydrologiska InstitutFolkborgsvägen 1
60176 Norrköping
SE
Daniel Michelson
E-mail: daniel.michelson@smhi.se
Phone: +46 11 495 8494
Fax: +46 11 495 8001
Information Manager:
Estonian Environmental AgencyMustamäe tee 33
10616 Estonia Tallinn
EE
Triin Metsallik
E-mail: triin@baltrad.eu
Phone: +372 666 0903
Fax: +372 666 0909
Summary description of the project:
Accurate and timely weather forecasts warn of hazardous conditions e.g. snow storms, hail, freezing rain, or floods, they can help save lives and property, and they can help optimize activities for several sectors of the economy. Weather radar systems are capable of monitoring rain, snow, hail and wind over large geographical areas in both time and space. Several such systems can be networked to cover countries, regions and eventually continents. During the main stage project BALTRAD the world’s most advanced international weather radar network has been developed and deployed. The BALTRAD network is decentralized, preserving the partnerships transnational integrity. BALTRAD delivers value-added precipitation information to improve short-term weather forecasts. The BALTRAD network has successfully demonstrated deployment by integrating data from 50 weather radars in ten countries into the system and forms the basis for the BALTRAD+ project.
BALTRAD+ is an initiative of the national weather and hydrological services in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Germany, Norway and Belarus. These are the institutes that own and operate the radars in each country, and that will be responsible for ensuring sustainability at the end of the project. The further development and deployment of the system is only possible by close co-operations with these partners as each partner not only provides their data, they all have complementary skills and experiences that are deployed through a transnational cooperation. In addition, the partnership comprises also local, regional and national authorities to use the forecasts to improve their services for society. The national radiation and nuclear safety authority in Finland, Aarhus Water and Aalborg University act as end-users in the project and have therefore an influence on the developments.
The main objective of BALTRAD+ has been to transform the real-time weather radar network created in the main stage project into a permanent operational element of regional infrastructure, with proven value to forecasters and decision-makers. On the operational side the objectives were to ensure that the real-time data exchange and works seamless, enhance the functionality for each partner to process the data using a harmonized set of methods, and to reduce imbalances in exchange, production and use of radar-based information in the Baltic Sea Region. On the end-users side, a regular end-user and an Advisory Committee has been established in order to target real-world weather and flood forecasting activities. Finally, the transferability from regional to local scale with higher resolution has been demonstrated.
Achievements of the project so far:
Building on the achievements of the main-stage project BALTRAD the work on the tasks to further develop the BALTRAD network in its functionality and completeness continued seamlessly. The main achievements are:
- Several tools that are needed to jointly develop the BALTRAD system in an efficient manner and to foster the cooperation of the system developers have been implemented. Preference has been given to open source solutions, a prerequisite to guarantee that the final results of the project will be available for the public.
- Towards the end of the project Version 2.0 of the BALTRAD system has been rolled out. The software package is freely available at http://git.baltrad.eu/
- One of the cornerstones in managing weather radar data is quality assurance. It is not trivial to specify and to deploy methods, procedures and algorithms for a harmonized processing of data according to agreed principles. Meanwhile several algorithms to improve the quality of weather radar data
have been implemented and validated. The documentation on how quality assurance will be achieved is documented and publicly available (http://git.baltrad.eu/trac/wiki/cookbook/
Well- defined and thoroughly- implemented quality assurance guarantees that differences in the quality of the final products (e.g. rain and snowfall estimates short term weather forecasts) are minimized of the same quality irrespectively from which operator of weather radar systems the raw data are delivered. The end-users throughout the Baltic Sea Region will benefit from this.
- Addressing the needs of end-users and receiving feedback from practitioners is a focus of the project. Taking account of the experiences from the main-stage project we are organising in each reporting period a so-called “BALTRAD User Forum). The first event of this type has been held on 15/16th May 2012 in Krakow, Poland. The second BALTRAD user forum was held on 4/5th December in Norrköping, Sweden. The third user forum took place
on 16th May 2013 in Vilnius. The fourth user forum took place on 21/22nd November 2013 in Berlin.
- BALTRAD reached interests beyond the BSR region. The Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center (UHMC), the national meteorological institute in Ukraine and the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (ROSHYDROMET) joined the partnership by signing the BALTRAD Cooperation Agreement. This agreement governs the mutual exchange of weather radar data for official use of the partners beyond the project lifetime and includes provisions for new members to join. Furthermore, a co-operation with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has been achieved.
Project Duration: | Oct 2011 - Jan 2014 |
Approximate total project budget in EUR: | 1.887.300,00 |
ERDF co-financing: | 1.318.540,00 |
ENPI co-financing: | 29.655,00 |
Norwegian national contribution: | 77.500,00 |
List of partners
Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) | ||||||||
60176 Norrköping | SWEDEN Folkborgsvägen 1 Region: Östra Mellansverige |
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Contact person: Ilmar Karro Phone: +46 11 495 8416 E-mail: ilmar.karro@smhi.se Web: www.smhi.se |
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Finnish Meteorological Institute | ||||||||
101 Helsinki | FINLAND P.O. Box 503 Region: Etelä-Suomi |
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Contact person: Jarmo Koistonen Phone: +358 50 5635166 E-mail: jarmo.koistinen@fmi.fi Web: www.fmi.fi |
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Institute of Meteorology and Water Management | ||||||||
01-673 Warszawa | POLAND Ul. Podleśna 61 Region: Mazowieckie |
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Contact person: Maciej Szewczykowski Phone: +48 22 569 4491 E-mail: maciej.szewczykowski@imgw.pl Web: www.imgw.pl |
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Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Center | ||||||||
1019 Riga | LATVIA Maskavas Street 165 Region: Latvija |
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Contact person: Edgars Smalins Phone: +371 67032627 E-mail: edgars.smalins@meteo.lv Web: www.meteo.lv |
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Danish Meteorological Institute | ||||||||
2100 København | DENMARK Lyngbyvej 100 Region: Hovedstaden |
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Contact person: Rashpal S. Gill Phone: +45 39 157342 E-mail: rsg@dmi.dk Web: www.dmi.dk |
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Lithuanian Hydrometeorological Service under the Ministry of Environment | ||||||||
09300 Vilnius | LITHUANIA Rudnios str. 6 Region: Lietuva |
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Contact person: Saulius Balys
Phone: (370 5) 275 1194 E-mail: lhmt@meteo.lt Web: www.meteo.lt |
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Republican Hydrometeorological Center | ||||||||
220114 Minsk | BELARUS Nezavisimosti av., 110 Region: Minskaya Oblastj, g. Minsk. |
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Contact person: Vladimir Filimonov Phone: +375 17 267 2531 E-mail: fil@by.mecom.ru Web: www.pogoda.by |
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Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) | ||||||||
881 Helsinki | FINLAND P.O. Box 14 Region: Etelä-Suomi |
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Contact person: Juhani Lahtinen Phone: +358 9 7598 8426 E-mail: Juhani.Lahtinen@stuk.fi Web: www.stuk.fi |
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Estonian Environment Agency | ||||||||
10616 Tallin | ESTONIA Mustamäe tee 33 Region: Eesti |
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Contact person: Andres Luhamaa Phone: +372 666 0901 E-mail: andres.luhamaa@envir.ee Web: www.keskkonnaagentuur.ee |
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Aalborg University, Department of Civil Engineering | ||||||||
9000 Aalborg | DENMARK Sohngaardsholmsvej 57 Region: Nordjylland |
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Contact person: Michael R. Rasmussen
Phone: +45 9940 8485 E-mail: mr@civil.aau.dk Web: www.civil.aau.dk |
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Aarhus Water A/S | ||||||||
8210 Aarhus | DENMARK Bautavej 1 Region: Midtjylland |
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Contact person: Anne Laustsen Phone: +45 89 47 10 10 E-mail: aarhusvand@aarhusvand.dk Web: www.aarhusvand.dk |
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Norwegian Meteorological Institute | ||||||||
0313 Oslo | NORWAY Niels Henrik Abelsvei 40 Region: Oslo og Akershus |
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Contact person: Jørgen Togstad Phone: +47 22 96 30 00 E-mail: jorgen.togstad@met.no Web: www.met.no |
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German Weather Service | ||||||||
20359 Hamburg | GERMANY Bernhard-Nocht-Straße 76 Region: Hamburg |
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Contact person: Alexander Harth Phone: +49 40 6 69 00 E-mail: Alexander.Harth@dwd.de Web: www.dwd.de |
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