TIFS developments inspired by the Beijing 2008 FDP

TIFS (Thunderstorm Interactive Forecast System) has been used in the Bureau of Meteorology since 2000 to produce thunderstorms warnings for specialised clients as well as the general public. The system allows forecasters to graphically review and edit radar based guidance and then automatically generates graphical and detailed text warnings.

The Beijing 2008 Forecast Demonstration Project (FDP) will bring together advanced nowcasting systems, many of which will produce guidance suitable for TIFS to use as the basis for new forecast and warning products. The challenge for TIFS in the FDP environment is to successfully ingest and integrate this guidance into products that address some of the need for timely and relevant weather information during the Olympics.

The focus for new TIFS capability will be flash flood warning and the use of an ensemble of guidance information from a range of nowcast systems to create probability based products.