The Second Continuous Development and Operations Phase of the Nowcasting Satellite Application Facility
Gomez Cid, Celestino; Alonso, Oscar
GMV, SPAIN

On August 2011, the EUMETSAT Council approved the development of the Second Continuous Development and Operations Phase (CDOP-2) for the Satellite Application Facility (SAF), a new five-year phase started in March 2012. The SAFs, a concept introduced during the definition of the Meteosat Second Generation project, are dedicated centres of excellence for processing satellite data and constitute an integral part of the distributed EUMETSAT Application Ground Segment. SAFs are developed by a consortium of EUMETSAT Member States and Cooperating States, and provide products and services on an operational basis to a large variety of final users covering many different areas including Atmosphere, Ocean, Land, Hydrology, Climate and Modelling.
One of these SAFs, the NWCSAF, led by the Spanish Meteorological Agency (AEMET) and developed in cooperation with Météo-France, SMHI and ZAMG, is devoted to provide to National Meteorological Services, Scientific Institutions and, in general, users from EUMETSAT member states and worldwide with advanced, robust and reliable operational services to support both operational and research activities in Nowcasting and Very Short Range Forecasting. This main objective is fulfilled by means of i) the provision of an operational software application for the near-real time generation of a set of meteorological products to support nowcasting activities, including Cloud, Clear-Air, Precipitation and Wind products, and ii) the provision of support services to the NWCSAF users to allow the maximum exploitation and benefit of the provided software application.
Along the current CDOP-2 phase, the NWCSAF will be mainly focused in the extension of the operability of the software package to generic geostationary and polar satellites, and in the improvement and development of new products according to the nowcasting state of the art and new requirements collected from the users.
GMV is supporting AEMET in the development of the NWCSAF project since its early stages in all engineering aspects, including the definition, design, implementation, integration, and testing of the system. GMV also provides a valuable service to final users supporting them during the installation, configuration, integration and operation of the system.