RadPro

The primary objective for the project is to provide improved analysis and forecasts of precipitation in order to give the hydropower partners better data products and software they can utilize to enhance their hydrological predictions. The improvement of numerical weather forecasting will decrease the deviation between the forecast and observed rainfall and temperature, to the benefit of the end user, i.e. users of Yr.

In order to improve the precipitation forecast, MET will combine information from radar reflectivity, output from the numerical weather prediction model, and in-situ precipitation observations. It will deliver valuable estimates of precipitation, temperature, and wind in time and space, which is crucial for hydrological models to forecast inflow at catchment scale.

Through the project MET will provide a software that the hydrological industries can use locally along with METs precipitation data and their own data. Based on the precipitation data from MET, the hydropower company decides how much electricity they can sell and the price. The economic benefit from the company’s energy production is therefore dependent on the accuracy of the precipitation forecast.

The software developed by MET as a part of the project will be available to the public as open source. The partnering hydropower companies will, as a part of the project, learn how to use it locally in a better way to utilize the precipitation data they receive and make it more specific for hydrological models.

The project is expected to lead to an improved precipitation forecast that will benefit the hydrological industry as well as the main public using our weather forecasting services.