Romania, despite its relatively small area, has a substantial variation in its terrain and other factors influencing the airflow dynamics. The hilly and mountainous areas are strongly influenced by flash flooding, and all areas are subject to diverse conditions ranging from severe thunderstorm with hail in summer, to heavy snowstorms in winter. Upgrading and integrating the various environmental and meteorological sensor data to provide a comprehensive understanding of the rapidly evolving environment and its impacts on human activities is a necessity for achieving the modernization plan of the Romanian Authorities for Waters and Environmental Protection.

In November 2000 the Romanian National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (INMH) began the first stage of the plan to modernize Romania’s capabilities for detecting, monitoring and predicting meteorological and hydrological phenomena affecting Romania, by implementing the National Integrated Meteorological System - SIMIN project. SIMIN addresses Romania’s primary objective of modernizing and integrating the nations various resources and real-time detection capabilities, and also facilitates the exchange of data at the Local, Regional, and Global levels.

The Project Team led by INMH and Lockheed Martin, has integrated current technologies in meteorological radars, automated surface observation stations, lightning detection networks, weather satellite reception, numerical weather prediction models, hydrological buoys, forecaster decision/display systems, and various forms of telecommunication. The Project Team has successfully integrated state-of-the-art, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies and products with the resources of Romania’s existing legacy meteorological infrastructure. SIMIN provides a turn-key integrated national system that modernizes INMH’s capability to detect, monitor and forecast meteorological phenomena and the resulting hydrological impacts, and elevates Romania to a regional leadership position in weather prediction for the 21st Century.

This paper briefly describes the system architecture integrated under the SIMIN program, discusses various implementation issues experienced by the Project Team, and summarizes the benefits the system brings to Romania in the form of improved weather surveillance and prediction, resulting in earlier warning of severe weather conditions for increased safety to the Romanian public.