EUMETSAT-ESSL Testbeds and Workshops for Meteosat Third Generation User Preparation

To prepare users for the Meteosat Third Generation of satellites, the first of which was launched in December 2022, ESSL conducts testbeds and expert workshops in cooperation with EUMETSAT at the ESSL Research and Training Centre in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. The goal of the testbeds is to expose forecasters to the capabilities of new MTG sensors, the Flexible Combined Imager (FCI), the Lightning Imager (LI), and the Infrared Sounder (IRS) and to collect their feedback on the visualizations of the data. 

In each of the testbeds, three of which were held in 2022, 15 people from different EUMETSAT member states take part in a week-long activity with working conditions close to the usual working environment of a forecaster, i.e., with having a wide range of data available, including many data not from satellites, together with predefined output formats and time pressure. The task of the participating meteorologists is to produce nowcasts and probabilistic forecasts for predefined types of severe weather. The forecast region depends on the weather situation of a particular day and can shift from one part of Europe to another from day to day, depending on the active weather patterns.

In 2022, before any MTG data was available, a range of products that functioned as a proxy for MTG data was used. This included data from imagers on polar-orbiting satellites mimicking the capabilities of future FCI products. These data were visualized in the ESSL Displayer, ESSL’s html interface for visualizing meteorological data. Based on the participants’ work and expert consultation on several RGBs, a novel “Low Moisture” product, and a range of products from the Nowcasting Satellite Applications Facility (NWC-SAF), direct and written feedback was collected and provided to the developers. In 2023, the focus will move away from proxy data to data collected by real MTG sensors. Actual FCI and, later, LI products will be included in the Testbed Displayer. For the hyperspectral IRS, a sensor mounted on the second MTG satellite to be launched in 2024, proxy data will be visualized.