News on the European Weather Radar Network (OPERA)

The OPERA programme (Operational Programme for the Exchange of weather Radar information, www.knmi.nl/opera) is the Weather Radar programme of EUMETNET, the Network of the European Meteorological Services (NMSs). The objective of OPERA is to harmonize and improve the operational exchange of weather radar information between national meteorological services. The third phase of the OPERA programme is a joint effort of 29 European countries, runs from 2007 till 2011, and is managed by KNMI. OPERA-3 is designed to firmly establish the Programme as the host of the European Weather Radar Network.

The OPERA-3 programme will focus on the operational generation and quality control of an European weather radar composite, exchange of reflectivity and velocity volume data, exchange of quality information, and availability of radar data for operations and research. An European Pilot Data Hub (PDH) for weather radar data was established at the UK Met Office between 2005 and 2006. During the third phase an OPERA Data Center (ODC) has been specified and development should start mid 2009. Start of operation of the ODC is planned for early 2011.

Besides the ODC development several other activities are performed in the framework of OPERA. Studies on the merits of polarimetric radar focused on operational application are performed, and harmonized production practices for volume data, low-level reflectivity and weather radar wind profiles are established. Furthermore OPERA actively participates in the discussion on (potential) RLAN disturbances at C-band. Finally OPERA also works on a new information model for exchange of radar volume data and products using BUFR and HDF5/NetCDF. In the presentation, the OPERA programme and its objectives will be introduced and the progress of the ODC development and the other projects will be discussed.