EUMETSAT, in partnership with the European Severe Storms Laboratory (ESSL), offers a series of testbeds to prepare operational meteorologists / forecasters to use data from the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) and the EUMETSAT Polar System Second Generation (EPS-SG) Programmes.
The testbeds teach (i) forecasting severe convective storms using state-of-the-art or experimental forecasting tools, and (ii) the evaluation of such tools. At these events, forecasters learn by simulating an operational forecasting situation, making severe weather forecasts and nowcasts using a mix of new nowcasting and forecasting tools, and then evaluating the quality of the forecast and the value of the data and tools.
Particular focus is given to the use of novel MTG satellite data from the FCI spectral imager and from the LI lightning imager instrument. In addition, a range of state-of-the-art nowcasting tools and numerical weather prediction-based guidance will be evaluated.