A Forecasters' Handbook for West Africa

A new handbook for weather forecasting in West Africa is due to be published in 2016.The book is intended to be the primary reference source for the training of weather forecasters in this important region of Africa. It is also intended that the book will be of value to students of tropical meteorology worldwide, as it brings together recent research results with practical operational methods for a tropical region and could serve as a template for other regions.

The book, which is titled

“Meteorology of Tropical West Africa: the Forecasters' Handbook”,

was completed in 2015, after more than 6 years of scientific exchange, research, writing and editing. The initiative sprang out of the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) research programme, which included an African forecasting programme at the AMMA Operational Centre (AOC) during its main field campaigns. Preparation of the Handbook has aimed to document existing good practice in forecasting, as well as to accelerate the transfer of new research results from AMMA into operational practice. In compiling the book, leading researchers in the science of West African monsoon dynamics and operational forecasters entered into a dialogue to (a) short-cut the transfer of new research results into operational forecasting and (b) challenge advances in theoretical process understanding with every-day weather analyses and forecasting.

The outcome is a book that serves both as an up-to-date textbook of West African monsoon climatology and dynamics and as a guide to weather forecasting, from the nowcasting to seasonal prediction scale, as well as from the local to the continental scale. Several workshops were held, in Europe and Africa, to bring together forecasters, modellers and academics and to reach consensus on the detailed content of the book. These exchanges have led to a number of innovations, including: new plotting conventions and rules for synoptic charts; new consensus on the structure of African Easterly Waves; and several new climatologies and case studies. Online support will be provided in the form of case studies of typical events and we are currently working with international agencies to make the Handbook material available to training schools in the region, in formats suitable for the classroom.