1. New faces

2. Institute of Meteorology and Water Management (IMGW) of Poland joins Eumetcal

3. Recent courses

4. Upcoming Courses

5. Eumetcal Workshop 2009

6. Working Group Meetings 2009

7. Technical news

1. New faces

 Vesa (Programme Manager) and Alessandro (Training Support Officer) took over Eumetcal activities from Carola and Jaakko, respectively, in January 2009, and now they are both getting more familiar on how everything works.

 Aviation Working Group ex-chairman Christophe Billard changed his position and the New Aviation WG chairman is Herve Hallot ([email protected]), who has a strong aviation training background and good connections both to the operational forecasting and the aviation customers. We welcome Herve to Working Group activities!

 Marco Nolet has replaced Annemarie Braam in the Eumetcal Steering Group. Welcome, Marco!

2. Institute of Meteorology and Water Management (IMGW) of Poland joins Eumetcal

Eumetcal is keeping expanding thanks to the recent inclusion of the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management (IMGW) of Poland into the project. This means new ideas, new human resources, different know-how and increased cooperation for the Eumetcal community.

3. Recent courses

Eumetcal Radar Course was run October 2008 - February 2009 and ended with very good final evaluations both from the participants and instructors. The course leader Wilfried did a superb job in managing the course with really global instructor resources. The Radar Working Group as whole was giving valuable support through the whole long process beginning from course syllabus development and ending with the actual course delivery.

There were 20 enthusiastic participants taking part in this course from Europe and Canada.

4. Upcoming Courses

 The first Eumetcal course in the field of satellite meteorology is going to start on the third week of April. The course “Principles of Satellite Meteorology” will be delivered in a blended format: it will start with the online phase, culminate with the classroom session in the middle of June and end with a wrap up phase in July. This course is developed by DWD and EUMETSAT with the participation of experts from several institutes. We wish both organizing staff and course participants a challenging and successful course.

 The Eumetcal NWP II blended course, to be held at the end of the year, is being defined in details and efforts are being made in order to assure a high standard of teaching and learning. Thanks to the effort of the course manager Vesa Nietosvaara, the course can already account for the precious contribution of quoted experts from Europe and USA. The official announcement of the course will be issued in the Eumetcal portal during next summer. Anyway we hope member states considering and planning the participation of their staff to this event as soon as possible.

5. Eumetcal Workshop 2009

The fifth international EUMETCAL Workshop will be held from 03 to 05 November 2009 at the Meteorological Training and Conference Center in Langen, Germany, hosted by the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD). Wilfried Jacobs will take care of the workshop content development and practical arrangements, supported by the TSO Alessandro Chiariello. In the coming workshop special emphasis will be addressed to pedagogical issue in didactics for training in the field of meteorology. Other topics included in the workshop will cover the optimization of different media in didactics as well as the assessment and discussion of future challenges for training in meteorology and the communication between different meteorological training bodies and programs across the world.

The workshop First Announcement has been issued and you can view it at the www.eumetcal.org. We encourage you to submit your proposal for an Oral or Poster Presentation, deadline for Abstracts is due 30.06.2009. In case you just want to participate to the Workshop do not hesitate to register yourself, deadline is due 04.09.2009.

6. Working Group Meetings 2009

All working groups will meet in Langen prior to the Eumetcal Workshop on Monday, 2 November, 2009. In addition to that, working groups are encouraged to meet either face-to-face or via online meeting. If you need to organise an online meeting with your group, please ask help from Alessandro who can set up a meeting from for you.

7. Technical news

The Eumetcal website is undergoing a deep modernization. Meteo France is evaluating together with the project management the design and technical features of the future website. The focus is to develop a portal where the access to the Eumetcal services is as clear and easy as possible and the tools for sharing and collaboration are enhanced.

Thank you for reading,

Alessandro Chiariello Eumetcal Training Support Officer

Vesa Nietosvaara Eumetcal Programme Manager