About the training
In collaboration with the Institute of Remote Sensing and GIS, Jahangirnagar University, we are organizing a technical training for the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) on the operationalization and use of the High Impact Weather Assessment Toolkit (HIWAT). The training will focus on the use of deterministic and ensemble numerical weather forecasts generated by HIWAT, provide an opportunity to discuss and refine HIWAT as per national needs, and receive feedback from BMD professionals on customization and enhancement of the toolkit’s data visualization capabilities.
Objective
Demonstrate HIWAT’s data visualization capabilities and receive feedback from users
Target audience
The training is meant for professionals from BMD and partners working in the field of hydrometeorology, and will include operational forecasters, climate, and disaster researchers.
Background
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) developed HIWAT as part of the NASA SERVIR Applied Sciences Team project. We worked with the NASA SERVIR Science Coordination Office, NASA MSFC, and Brigham Young University to further customize HIWAT for the HKH region under our SERVIR-HKH Initiative.
After two years of successful demonstration of HIWAT’s capabilities for extreme weather forecasting, BMD will be installing HIWAT at their computing cluster for operational thunderstorm forecasting. With funding support from the Government of Bangladesh, BMD has procured a high-performance computing (HPC) system for the installation of HIWAT. We are working with the NASA SERVIR Applied Sciences Team to install HIWAT in BMD’s HPC system.
Resource persons
- Jonathan Case, NASA Applied Sciences Team (virtual participation)
- Abdul Mannan, Meteorologist, BMD
- Bhupesh Adhikary, Senior Air Quality Specialist, ICIMOD
- Mir Matin, Theme Leader – Geospatial Solutions, ICIMOD
- Birendra Bajracharya, Chief of Party – SERVIR-HKH, ICIMOD
- Kiran Shakya, Geospatial Application Development Specialist, ICIMOD
