HIWeather: bringing an international perspective to weather readiness

Over the past 10 years, the THORPEX project has produced impressive advances in synoptic scale weather prediction, the development of convection-permitting models has enabled the prediction of weather-related hazards, and technology has become available for more effective communication of forecasts and warnings to emergency managers and the public. The time is ripe to use these capabilities to build resilience to weather hazards in all countries. Working alongside national initiatives, such as the USA's Weather Ready Nation, the World Meteorological Organisation has launched the 10-year HIWeather project to facilitate international collaboration in solving the key obstacles to achieving this across the physical and social sciences. Our talk will describe the structure of the project, focussing on the way in which decisions made by emergency responders and the public determine what information should be communicated, when and how, which in turn, drive the challenges to the weather enterprise. We will outline some of the early areas of work in the project that will begin to address these issues.