Hello,

My name is Isaac Mugume Amooti. I have an M.Sc in meteorology and currently Assistant Lecturer of Meteorology at Makerere University, Uganda. I got interested to participate in the Summer school due to: (1) to enhance skills in regard to use of hydrometeorological models during teaching and research; (2) I am starting my Ph.D studies this year, September 2014 and will use WRF: my proposed study topic is optimising WRF for operational weather forecastuing in Uganda.

I have just been an end user of hydrometeorological models while still a Meteorologist/forecaster (2005-2012) and would like now to gain depeer insight into the models.

We have been experiencing extreme weather events in Uganda, like droughts especially the northeast part, floods and these floods have sometimes caused landslides and death.

Hello, everyone,

I am Qian XIA(call me Amy if you like and for your convenience) from China, pursuing the PhD degree in the institute of Geophysics and Meteorology at University of Cologne, Germany. I have got my Master degree on Hydrology in China and I have started the work in Germany since sepetmber 2013. Curently I am engaging in the project about coupling of WRF and Hydrology model. Until now, my colleagues and I have developed our coupled land surface- hydrology model and we are working to couple these LSM-HM with WRF.

As for the destination of this DRIHM summer school, I want to know more about WRF and how to deal with the hydro-meteorology model. And I am glad to knew some researchers/engineers from different countries who are doing the simular work as me.

Regards,
Qian

Hello everyone,

My name is Siamak Gharahjeh and I am doing PhD. in Middle East Technical University (Ankara, Turkey). My research field is stream flow measurement through free surface photography by employing mathematical modelling. The technique is suitable for flooding conditions.

I find myself curious on learning various tools and methodologies of hydrological forecasting and familiarizing myself with the infrastructures of the DRIHM project in this summer school.

I am looking forward to meeting you for an academic collaboration.

Yours, Sincerely.

I am working as a high performance computing and research engineer responsible for smooth running of numerical models on high performance computing facility at Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD). Participation in this summer school will enable me to understand the science of hydro-meteorological models and their applications for specific hydrological simulations. This knowledge is very important for my home country as Pakistan had been victim of severe extreme rainfall and consequently flood events in the past, which caused loss of life and property of a vast population. I am affiliated with Pakistan Meteorological Department which is sole national organization providing weather and flood forecasting throughout the country. Therefore capacity building in the field of hydro-meteorological research would be very helpful for me as well as for Pakistan Meteorological Department to improve its flood forecasting skills. Although the content of the summer school focuses on hydro-meteorological research at European scale yet the topics of the summer schools are very relevant to my area of work and the gained knowledge can be applied on target areas in future.

Currently, I am working on the statistical downscaling and dynamical downscaling of
GCMs with the help of Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. I have previously done hydrological simulations with the help of Rainfall Runoff Inundation (RRI) model using downscaled GCMs precipitation forecast from NCEP GFS and ECMWF datasets over Kabul River Basin. I have 4 years experience in use of numerical models for weather and climate applications including use of global climate datasets and regional climate models WRF, COSMO, RegCM, HRM, RCA4 and PRECIS. I am well conversant with data manipulation, visualization and processing methodologies. I also have understanding of remote sensing tools like ArcGIS,
NKGIS, and QGIS.

Hello,
My name is Gordan Mimić and I am 26 years old PhD candidate in Envirnomental Modelling at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Serbia. I am on the second year of PhD program and my research is in teoretical approach of environmental modelling - chaos and complexity analysis. Previously, in the period October 2011 – July 2012 (while I was on Master of Meteorology at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad), I was working in Republic Hydrometeorological Service of Serbia, at the Department of Operating Systems Support, doing numerical weather prediction using numerical models WRF-NMM and NMMB. Also, I was doing research for my graduation thesis in Physics-Meteorology (Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad) at the mentioned Department in period March 2011- June 2011, and the title was „Initialization of WRF-NMM model with data from ASCAT observations of surface soil moisture“.
I am interested in this summer school, hoping the I will get complete image of state of the art enironmental models incorporated in one whole, used operationally for everyday weather and hydro forcasts.

Hi,
My name is Shawn Boyce. I am currently employed as the Chief Hydrologist (Ag.) at the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) where I started after graduating from Newcastle University with a M.Sc. in Hydrology in 2006. The CIMH is a regional organisation, located in Barbados, mandated to assist with the improvement and development of meteorological and hydrological services for the economic well being of Member States through training, research and development and the provision of specialised services.

At CIMH my interests include flood forecasting. The Caribbean is extremely exposed to hydro-meterological risks. Extreme precipitation associated with cyclonic and non-cyclonic systems has resulted in catastrophic flooding and landslides in some countries resulting in damage to properties and loss of life. The small, steep sloped watersheds especially in the volcanic islands do not afford flood forecasters significant lead times. Therefore, the use of numerical weather prediction models is seen as a necessary step to establish a robust flood forecasting system. Solely depending on real-time instrument data and/or weather radar information will limit forecast effectiveness.

The CIMH produces 4 km resolution numerical weather forecasts operationally four times daily centred over the Caribbean using the WRF-ARW model. Currently, I am testing the effectiveness of a routine which extracts the precipitation forecast data and utilises the data in a rainfall-runoff model (HEC-HMS) to produce and publish forecast hydrographs operationally. This approach is being tested in two pilot watersheds located in Jamaica and Barbados. Recent developments in hydro-meteorological modelling such as WRF-hydro and ParFlow-WRF are of interest as they provide interesting opportunities to build on current flood forecasting efforts by providing a more robust, fully coupled approach.

The DRIHM summer school will provide an excellent opportunity for the further enhancement of the research and development program at the CIMH. The insight provided specifically with regards to the linking of meteorological and hydrological models will be invaluable. In addition, the opportunity to be exposed to state-of-the-art forecasting tools within a high performance environment is exciting and will contribute to my professional development.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the DRIHM summer school Organising Committee for considering my application.

Shawn
Web: www.cimh.edu.bb
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