Full version: HIWeather - April 2019.pdf

April 2019

Preparations for the UNISDR Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR 2019) and the second Multi-Hazard Early Warning Conference (MHEWC-II) have been dominating HIWeather of late. For the MHEWC, I have been co-organising two sessions: Session 1 on the Last Mile and Session 3 on Science, Technology & Innovation. David Johnston will be moderating the Last Mile session with Julia Chasco (Evaluation task team) as keynote speaker, so HIWeather will be well represented. For the Science, Technology & Innovation session, Paul Davis (Met Office Chief Meteorologist) is keynote speaker and will highlight HIWeather in his talk. Session 2 is dedicated to Impact Based Forecasting and there is a side event on Health Impacts, in which the keynote speaker is Advisory Board member Virginia Murray. A set of six issue briefs has been prepared for the conference web site, of which I edited four using material from HIWeather. In the GPDRR itself, David Johnston and I sit on three of the session organising committees, and David is organising an Ignite Stage presentation on the Communications Team’s special journal issue. Finally, the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, which will be issued for the Global Platform, contains a HIWeather authored report focused around using the Value Chain to optimise warning systems.

Meanwhile, in March I joined Advisory Board member Jennifer Sprague Hildebrand and ex-Evaluation Team member Jeff Lazo, with others, in a panel discussion on Valuing Weather Services at the AMS Washington Forum. This was a very different style of conference from any I have been to before, with the emphasis on policy issues and on communication between the meteorological community and policy makers in government. To facilitate this, much of the forum was conducted according to modified Chatham House Rules, i.e. material could be quoted but not attributed. This enabled government employees to be slightly more open than usual. The panel discussion aimed to make the case for service evaluation being a routine component of the weather service rather than something done occasionally as required, using a new approach each time. Routine evaluation with a standardised approach would permit longitudinal analysis, while evaluation along the value chain would permit targeting of investment in those areas that would provide greatest payback.

In April, Qinghong attended the Conference on Mesoscale Convective System and High Impact Weather (ICMCS-XIII) in Okinawa. She introduced the HIWeather Project to attract more attention among Asia-Pacific region.  Besides, she joined in the workshop of World Meteorological Centres in Beijing China to contribute the refining work of seamless GDPFS Implementation Plan.

The RISK Knowledge Action Network (RISK-KAN) development group has begun its work and is considering what topics should be covered by the first set of working groups. It is likely that the main linkage with HIWeather will be through one of these. Meanwhile the group plans to meet briefly at the GPDRR in May and then for a longer session at the Herenhausen conference on Extreme Events: Building Climate Resilient Societies in Hannover in October.

My task after getting back from the GPDRR in May will be to write and circulate an outline for a proposed book on HIWeather, which will be structured around the Warnings Value Chain, as represented in the Five Valleys of Death diagram. This will be a big undertaking, and will need the commitment of task team members and others to prepare the text. I look forward to sharing more about this in the next newsletter.

Wishing you all every success in your HIWeather activities.

Brian Golding