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Description
The number and intensity of severe weather events is increasing, leading to loss of goods, property, and human lives. In 2017, a storm caused 5 deaths in the Romanian city of Timisoara, triggering the creation of a nation-wide emergency alerting system. Improved weather forecasting, especially for severe weather events expected less than 6 hours in the future, also known as nowcasting, is expected to help mitigate the outcome of such events.
Issuing accurate weather warnings is difficult for meteorologists, as they must consider changes in the speed and direction of wind at different heights, air temperature and pressure, cloud cover, as well as the effect of terrain features and climate - all changing from one hour to the next. Decisions must be made quickly and broadcast to people in the affected area in time to take necessary precautions.
Our project uses artificial intelligence to analyze present and past meteorological data gathered by satellites, weather radars and ground stations. Powerful computers will allow our programs to compare current conditions to past ones and inform meteorologists when and where dangerous weather events are expected faster than they could otherwise determine. This will allow meteorologists to give people more precise and earlier warnings.
The project team is comprised of researchers from the Babes-Bolyai University, who will contribute their expertise in artificial intelligence; meteorology experts from the Romanian National Meteorological Administration will provide the data and interpretation for Romania, while their colleagues at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute will do the same for Norway. Once ready, the jointly developed system will be extensively tested by on-duty meteorologists, who will evaluate its precision and speed in the nowcasting process. Population in both countries will benefit by having more time to prepare and, with a reduced risk of false alarms will have more confidence in meteorological alerts.