Workshop on WMO Climatological Standard Normals Calculation
DGM, 9 and 13 December 2021
DGM, 9 and 13 December 2021
Background
New climatological standard normals should be calculated of the thirty-year period 1991-2020 responding
to the call of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
As you may recall, the Seventeenth World
Meteorological Congress (Cg-17) in 2015, through Resolution 16 (Cg-17) – Report of the Sixteenth Session of
the Commission for Climatology, decided to improve the definition of a Climatological Standard Normal.
A Climatological Standard Normal now refers to the most recent 30-year period finishing in a year ending
with zero (1981–2010, 1991–2020 etc.) rather than to non-overlapping 30-year-periods (1931–1960, 1961–1990
etc.).
While Members are strongly encouraged to comply with the new standard as quickly as possible, WMO
continues to serve as a collector of Climatological Standard Normals in order to establish a global holding
of comparable and accessible standards. The United States of America National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), through their National Centres for Environmental Information
(NCEI), generously
agreed to continue collecting and publishing Climatological Standard Normals globally on behalf of WMO.
WMO therefore invite Members to submit 1991–2020 Climatological Standard Normals for as many stations
as possible, including stations registered in OSCAR/Surface, the Observing Systems Capability Analysis and
Review tool for the surface-based observations, and in particular for stations that (i) constitute the Regional
Basic Climatological Networks (RBCNs), (ii) report monthly CLIMAT messages, and (iii) contribute to the
World Weather Records collection.
It is requested that data be calculated, digitized and provided in either EXCEL or text format, following the
guidance provided in the WMO Guidelines on the Calculation of Climate Normals
(WMO-No. 1203).
To facilitate this task, a web application has been developed in R under
Shiny to calculate the climatological
standard normals values and write them into CSV files in the delivering format specified by WMO. It requires
two input files (a Metadata file and a Daily data file). A template for these files can be downloaded via the
web application interface. The user guide of the interface can
be downloaded here .
To address the capacity building needs, in National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) of Central and West Africa countries,
and under the “West Africa Region: Seamless Operational Forecast Systems and Technical Assistance for Capacity Building (CREWS-West Africa)"
Project, funded by the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) initiative,
the Moroccan Direction Générale de la Météorologie , in collaboration
with the World Meteorological Organisation,
organize two workshops on :
WMO Climatological Standard Normals Calculation.
on 9 and 13 December, 2021.
These workshops will take place online via the Zoom platform (See GUIDE) and the link will be sent to the registered participants in due time.
The main purpose of these workshops is to provide guidance and training (online) on the principles and tools for WMO climatological standard normals calculation with respect to WMO guidelines.
Participants and workshops schedule
Workshops target countries are West and Central Africa countries including the 24 Members of PRESASS, PRESAGG and PRESAC. The content of these workshops is the same. The working language for the first workshop will be French and for the second workshop will be English.
Hereafter is the schedule of the workshops and the list of the participing countries for each workshop:| Workshop date | Participing
countries | Working language |
| Thursday 9 December 2021 | Bénin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroun, Côte d'Ivoire,
Centrafrique, Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, Gabon, Guinée, Guinée équatoriale, Mali, Mauritanie, Niger, Sénégal, Tchad and Togo . | French |
| Monday 13 December 2021 | Cap-Vert, Gambie, Ghana, Guinée-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Saõ Tomé et Principe. | English |
Workshop Agenda (Time in GMT)
Workshop Opening | ||
|---|---|---|
| 09:05-09:15 | Rachid SEBBARI DGM | Welcome and Opening addresses and background of the workshop; |
Climate Data Management and Products | ||
| 09:10-10:00 | Dris BARI DGM | Concept of and calculation of climatological standard normals for 1991-2020 [ English ] |
| 10:05-10:35 | Dris BARI DGM | Demonstration and Initiation to the use of the web application dedicated to WMO climate normals calculation [ Tutorial in English ] |
| 10:40-11:00 | Discussion: Q/A, Countries’ needs | |
Closing | ||
Recordings
Recording [ English ] (will be available after the workshop)Speakers
Sebbari Rachid (DGM)
Driss Bari (DGM)
Organizers
For further inquiries, please contact the coordinator from DGM :
Rachid SEBBARI : sebbari@gmail.com
Resources
- User guide for the Web Application for the calculation
of climatological normals
- WMO2016_1182 : Guidelines on Best Practices for Climate Data
Rescue
- WMO2017_1203 : Guidelines on the Calculation of
Climate Normals
- WMO2019_1238 : Manual on the High-quality Global Data Management
Framework for Climate
- WMO2020_1245 : Guidelines
on Homogenization
- WMO2018_100 : Guide to
Climatological Practices
FAQ
Question 1?
Answer 1
Question 2?
Answer 2.