High‐resolution nowcasting and its application in road maintenance: experiences from the INCA Central European area project

Abstract

The improvement of risk management standards within the field of road safety has been one of the central goals of the EU funded project INCA (Integrated Nowcasting Through Comprehensive Analysis) Central Europe – Integrated Nowcasting system for the Central European area. The project approach was undertaken in a transnational and multidisciplinary way by enhancing the very short range weather model INCA for specific application fields (among others road safety). The communication between model developers, weather services, stakeholders and local authorities have been enhanced via intensified feedback loops. Meteorological parameters in INCA that are commonly used by road management authorities are 2-m temperature, surface temperature, precipitation and precipitation type. The INCA system has been put into pilot implementation in three different countries, that is, Austria, Slovakia and Slovenia. It has been shown that the system is able to offer detailed information about the temporal evolution and spatial distribution of snowfall and surface temperature, which is crucial for adequate short term decision making. The skill is especially high in the nowcasting range (which corresponds to a forecast horizon of ∼ 6 h) and the system is able to represent specific regional and local characteristics. An additional coupling of INCA with a road-specific energy balance model (like model of the environment and temperature of roads (METRo)) is able to further improve the skill and thus enhance the capability of INCA to be used in road management services.