Training forecasters on the use of new generation satellite products

The complete constellation of Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) consists of three spacecrafts: two imaging satellites and one sounding satellite. The first imaging satellite, MTG-I1, is now operational under the name Meteosat-12. The satellite carries two important instruments – Flexible Combined Imager (FCI), a successor of SEVIRI on MSG, and a Lightning Imager (LI), the first space-based instrument monitoring lightning occurrence over Europe, Africa and even parts of South America, North America, and Asia from geostationary orbit.  

The first sounder satellite, launched in July 2025, with its Infrared Sounder (IRS) will provide hyperspectral soundings of the atmosphere from geostationary orbit. It will track the three-dimensional structure of atmospheric water vapour and temperature. The Infrared Sounder instrument will detect instability in the atmosphere before clouds have formed.  

In addition to these geostationary satellites, EUMETSAT Polar System Second Generation (EPS-SG) satellites will bring new observational capabilities from the polar orbit. This mission will continue the dissemination of information to improve numerical weather prediction (NWP) and support Nowcasting applications, especially at high latitudes, such as in Scandinavia. 

All these new capabilities bring a huge amount of new data and products, which will be a challenge to absorb in the operational services. In our talk we will describe how EUMETSAT, together with its training partners in Europe and Africa, addresses this challenge. A variety of training material used in several types of training courses, as well as examples of key application guidelines presented to forecasters, will be shown. Finally, highlights from the evaluations provided by course participants, will be used to demonstrate the level of satisfaction with the courses and the need for improvements.