The Subgroup on Regional Aspects of Public Weather Services of RA VI has the strategic goal to promote systematically the work of the National Weather Services in the Region. A major part of the work of the subgroup has had to deal with the development of advice and documentation on the regional aspects of the PWS Programme and its implementation, paying particular attention to education and training requirements and demonstrating the benefits of public weather services with a view to increasing the visibility of National Meteorological Services (NMS's) in the Region.

To address the subgroup mandate and as a most efficient means of gathering the required information, the participating members decided to develop a questionnaire on PWS.

The questionnaire addressed the following terms of reference of the subgroup:

The questionnaire was distributed in January 2001 and the response to it was highly encouraging. The final results of the evaluation of the questionnaire are presented in a technical document by WMO.

The questions concerning "Education and Training" in the questionnaire are the following:
11. Does your Service undertake education and training for the staff involved in PWS?
12. What are the main topics in these training activities?
13. Does your Service provide any training by using Computer Aided Learning (CAL)?
14. Does the staff prefer traditional methods of training or CAL? Which subject?
15. What are the topics where PWS staff needs more assistance?
16. Does your Service provide any education and training program for the users of PWS?
17. Does your staff receive any education and training on how to meet users' requirements?
18. Does your Service have any training material that can be used by other NMS's?

The authors report to the questions 12 and 18. The evaluation is covered in figures 1 and 2.


The major findings related to these questions are:


 

Conclusion

The main topics in the existing training activities are short-and medium-range weather forecasting followed by nowcasting and numerical modelling. Seasonal forecasting, marketing of services and PWS-related activities including disaster management are not normally included in the training programmes.

Staff of NMS's needs more assistance in forecasting, nowcasting, new applications, users' requirements and ensemble prediction systems.

More than 50 % of NMS's do not have any training material which can be used by other services.
 
 

Recommendations

The analysis of the questionnaire has pointed to a number of areas where particular attention
is needed in NMS's in RA VI.
These are:
· insufficient attention to education and training
· lack of availability of performance assessment results.
 

The authors are authorized to report parts of the questionnaire to the Working Group on Co-operation between European Forecasters.
 

Teresa DINIZ ABRANTES                                                                                                        Herbert GMOSER
Instituto de Meteorologia                                                                                                               Central Institute for Meteorology and
Head Weather Forecasting                                                                                                           Geodynamics
Rua C. Ao Aeroporto                                                                                                                      Department of Synoptical Meteorology
P-1749-077 Lisboa, Portugal                                                                                                      Division Head Operational Weather
Teresa.Abrantes @meteo.pt                                                                                                        Forecasting
                                                                                                                                                               Hohe Warte 38
                                                                                                                                                               A-1190 Vienna, Austria
                                                                                                                                                              Herbert.Gmoser@zamg.ac.at