Past OPERA events
Past OPERA events
| Tenth OPERA-3 meeting in Jersey (UK, October 2011) | The Opera story continued with the tenth plenary meeting of OPERA-3 held from 11 to 14 October in st Hellier. The meeting was kindly hosted by the States of Jersey Meteorological Department. During the meeting the decision to extend the Odyssey functionality, using BALTRAD technology , was accepted. This is a leap forward in reaching an uniform quality trouhghout Europe with regard to the processing of weather radar data.
A group photo of the opera delegates in front of the Radisson Blu conference center (at low tide) is shown below. |
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| Ninth OPERA-3 meeting in Exeter (UK, April 2011) | The ninth plenary meeting of OPERA-3 took place from April 12 to April 14 2011 in Exeter, kindly hosted by the MetOffice. A Radar Quality Control and Qantitative Precipitation Estimation (RQQI) meeting was held in parallel with this Opera Meeting at the MetOffice. The Weather Radar and Hydrology symposium which runs every three years was held the week after in Exeter too, so quite a lot of Opera delegates joined this WRAH2011 as well. Exeter compered for this two weeks as the mondial centre of weather radar related issues. Well done Exeter.
A group photo of the opera delegates in front of the Metoffice's Head Quarters is shown below. |
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| New OPERA document on wind turbines (February 2011) | OPERA has completed a new study on the effect of wind turbines on the weather radar measurements. The study shows by example data that wind turbines can disturb radar measurements at distances of several tens of kilometers, and confirms that there needs to have an exclusion zone around a radar to ensure a coexistence of weather radars and wind turbines. The document is found in the Deliverables section of the leftmenu. |
| ODYSSEY the Opera Data Centre online |
After a very successful 15 month development project, the EIG EUMETNET OPERA Data Centre (Odyssey) will start disseminating operational composite products from 11:00 UTC on Tuesday 18 January 2011. Odyssey is now going through a 3 month pre-operational phase, meaning that the system is regarded operational by the Met Office and Météo France but the development teams are still expected to be actively available to resolve problems and tidy up any loose ends. The Max reflectivity product of the output ODC currently shows 70 operational radars contributing in this Odyssey composite. The goal is to include all radars of the 30 Opera members during 2011. |
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| New OPERA deliverables online | Two new deliverables from the third phase of OPERA are now published online. The first one describes the procedures in use for the radar site selection and protection, and the second contains a proposal for a quality index to be used. The documents and software can be found in the Deliverables section of the leftmenu |
| Eighth OPERA-3 meeting in Aalborg (DK) | The eighth plenary meeting of OPERA-3 took place from 26 October to 29 October 2010 in Aalborg. The meeting was hosted by the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) in cooperation with the Aalborg University. A Baltrad User Group Meeting was held on October 25 as a side meeting to Opera. A group photo taken at the Sohngaardsholm Slot is shown below. |
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| Seventh OPERA-3 meeting in Uppsala | The seventh plenary meeting of OPERA-3 was held from 2 to 4 June 2010 in Uppsala. The meeting was kindly hosted by SMHI. The meeting was originally planned for 22 to 24 April, but had to be postponed due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland. A group photo taken at the meeting is shown below. |
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| Change of programme manager | Since 1 January 2010 Asko Huuskonen is the program manager of OPERA-3 and KNMI is the coordinating member. |
| First deliverables of OPERA-3 online! |
| The first deliverables from the third phase of OPERA are now published online. The documents and software can be found in the deliverables section of the leftmenu or by using this link |
| European radar database online! |
| OPERA Database with information on the weather radars in Europe has gone online. The database can be queried using this link |
| Sixth OPERA-3 meeting in Toulouse | The sixth plenary meeting of OPERA-3 was held from 14 to 16 October 2009 in Toulouse. The meeting was kindly hosted by Meteo France. A group photo taken at the meeting is shown below. |
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| Serbia has officially joined OPERA |
| Recently the Republic Hydrometeorological Service of Serbia (RHMS) has officially joined the OPERA program. As a result OPERA now has an involvement of 30 European countries! Julijana Nadj and Gordana Marinkovic will be the Serbian delegates in OPERA. |
| First deliverables of OPERA-3 online! |
| The first deliverables from the third phase of OPERA are now published online. The documents and software can be found in the deliverables section of the leftmenu or by using this link |
| European radar database online! |
| OPERA Database with information on the weather radars in Europe has gone online. The database can be queried using this link |
| Fifth OPERA-3 meeting in Ljubljana |
| The fifth plenary meeting of OPERA-3 was held from 22 to 24 April 2009 in Ljubljana. The meeting was kindly hosted by EARS. A group photo taken at the meeting is shown below. |
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| Fourth OPERA-3 meeting in Potsdam |
| The fourth plenary meeting of OPERA-3 was held from 30 September to 2 October 2008 in Potsdam. The meeting was kindly hosted by DWD. A group photo taken at the meeting is shown below. |
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| OPERA BUFR Tables available on-line |
| The recent releases of the OPERA BUFR tables for encoding and decoding of weather radar data are now available on-line. The tables can be downloaded via: BUFR tables. |
| Third OPERA-3 meeting in Bratislava |
| The third meeting of OPERA-3 was held from 22 to 24 April 2008 in Bratislava. The meeting was hosted by SHMU. A group photo taken at the meeting is shown below. |
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| Estonia has joined OPERA |
| Recently the Estonian Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (EMHI) has joined the OPERA program. As a result OPERA now has an involvement of 29 European countries! Tarmo Kaldma will be the Estonian delegate in OPERA. |
| Second OPERA-3 meeting in Dublin |
| The second meeting of OPERA-3 was held from 3 to 5 October 2007 at Dublin Castle. The meeting was hosted by Met Eireann. A group photo taken at the meeting is shown below. |
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| Start of OPERA-3 projects |
| At the first meeting the subprojects of OPERA-3 have now been assigned to responsible institutes and project leaders. Twelve projects on radar algorithms and technology, radar software development, and OPERA data services have now started their work. |
| First OPERA-3 meeting in De Bilt |
| The first meeting of OPERA-3 was held from 25 to 27 April 2007 at KNMI in De Bilt. A group photo taken at the meeting is shown below. |
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| Start of third phase |
| Since 1 January 2007 KNMI is the Responsible Member for the third phase of the OPERA program and Iwan Holleman is the program manager of OPERA-3. |
