Common projects and work in progress

TAF verification
The development and implementation of internationally accredited and applicable forecast verification systems has long been a great source of difficulty and complexity for aviation MET service providers. In many cases each organization carries out its own verification, leading to duplication of effort and dissatisfaction by the users because such individualized schemes do not lend themselves to comparison or the determination of best practice in forecast production.
Since 2009, all the members of MET Alliance based their TAF verifications on the scheme developed by Austro Control. Once a year, experts of the different organization meet to discuss the results in each country, the way of sharing best practices and the possible modification needed on the scheme after a change in regulation (e.g. ICAO amendment).

Further information concerning the scheme used is available on Austro Control website: here

SIGMET Coordination
A dedicated project has been launched to improve the consistency of the SIGMET production in the MET Alliance area.

The eight members of MET Alliance now share some of their national tools with each other; they've for example granted mutual access to their national self briefing systems.

An action has been initiated to harmonize the forecaster's handbooks so that the same criteria and thresholds are used for SIGMET issuance by the MET Alliance partners.

Last, but not least, operational coordination procedures prior to the issuance of SIGMETs have been put into place between Meteo-France and skeyes, between skeyes and KNMI, between KNMI and DWD and between MeteoSwiss, DWD and Austrocontrol. The ultimate goal is to eventually have such procedures implemented at every national border between MET Alliance members.

Training cooperation
To ensure the greatest possible level of efficiency in the delivery of training, MET Alliance Members organizations have opened their training events to all Members. Moreover common workshops are organized on regular basis to share expertise, knowledge and best practice on chosen subjects. For example, the last workshop focused on "Remote Sensing".

With the new WMO regulation regarding competencies for Aeronautical Meteorological Observers and Aeronautical Meteorological Forecasters, all meteorological service providers need to ensure that their Aeronautical Meteorological personnel has the required competencies. Therefore a Competency Assessment Scheme needs to be implemented from December 2013 onwards. All members are facing similar issues and have decided to collaborate in developing their Competency Assessment Schemes.

Automated Aviation Observations
The MET Alliance has a standing group of experts monitoring developments in automated observations. Currently each of the Member organizations is moving or has moved at different rates in this regards. A workshop on the subject has been organized in November 2011.
The main task of MET Alliance in this area is to continue to act as a clearing house for ideas related to automated observations and to set high-level standards and guidance for these developments.

Common Key Performance Indicators (cKPI)
An essential element of any Quality Management System is the setting of key performance indicators for systems, products and services. Since there are no specified KPIs in the current regulatory documents governing MET provision, the organizations requesting certification (ISO, SES) have to specify their own KPIs, based primarily on their own experiences. The development of common KPIs will provide the MET Alliance member organizations with an internationally accredited system. It is worth noting that in the current state of development the cKPIs set spans the range of activities of the Member organizations, from operational and training systems to management and technical support areas.

©MET Alliance, January 2017, disclaimer