Abstract
Abstract. National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) increase their efforts to deliver impact-based weather forecasts and warnings. At the same time, a desired increase in cost-efficiency prompts these services to automatize their weather station networks and to reduce the number of human observers, which leads to a lack of “ground truth” information about weather phenomena and their impact. A possible alternative is to encourage the general public to submit weather observations, which may include crucial information especially in high-impact situations. We wish to provide an overview of the state and properties of existing collaborations between NMHSs and voluntary weather observers or storm spotters across Europe. For that purpose, we performed a survey among 30 European NMHSs, from which 22 NMHSs returned our questionnaire. This study summarizes the most important findings and evaluates the use of “crowdsourced” information. 86 % of the surveyed NMHSs utilize information provided by the general public, 50 % have established official collaborations with spotter groups, and 18 % have formalized them. The observations are most commonly used for a real-time improvement of severe weather warnings, their verification, and an establishment of a climatology of severe weather events. The importance of these volunteered weather and impact observations has strongly risen over the past decade. We expect that this trend will continue and that storm spotters will become an essential part in severe weather warning, like they have been for decades in the United States of America. A rising number of incoming reports implies that quality management will become an increasing issue, and we finally discuss an idea how to handle this challenge.
Highlights
This study summarizes the most important findings and evaluates the use of “crowdsourced” information. 86 % of the surveyed National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) utilize information provided by the general public, 50 % have established official collaborations with spotter groups, and 18 % have formalized them
Operational human weather observers are becoming increasingly rare among National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) across Europe
European NMHSs are recently increasing their efforts towards issuing impact-based weather forecasts and warnings
Summary
Operational human weather observers are becoming increasingly rare among National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) across Europe. The rising participatory character of the internet (“web 2.0”) made it easier for these enthusiasts to connect, to exchange information and to organize themselves in various ways from low levels (e.g., a discussion forum or a common social media platform) to high levels (e.g., the foundation of a non-profit association with clearly defined goals) Some of these people, though not necessarily so, have an enhanced interest in high-impact weather situations. Real-time observations of severe weather and its impact by these voluntary observers play a crucial role especially in the process of tornado warnings, and will likely ever continue to do so despite the refinements in radar technology (Doswell III et al, 1999) This collaboration between the National Weather Service and Skywarn has acted as a blueprint for similar activities in Europe, though there may be variations and particularities across different countries.
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