The Product and Process Innovation Division (PPI) develops new products (demand pull), implements results from the Weather Research and Development Division into operational practice (technology push), upgrades existing applications, manages strategic innovative programmes, and gives advice to the KNMI management on complicated issues (‘Quick Scans’). The activities are structured through project management procedures that are incorporated in the ISO 9000 quality system of the Weather department.

• An improved probability forecast tool for Low Visibility Procedure (LVP) conditions at Schiphol airport to assist the airport capacity planning. This tool is very successful and draws international attention.
• The severe thunderstorm application KOUW has been implemented in our operational environment, with the purpose to issue Weather Alarms for severe lightning. The application produces probabilistic forecasts for exceeding several severe lightning thresholds and is used for decision support by operational forecasters.
• In 2009 a diagnostic tool for forecasting the type of mode in convection, such as single cells, multicells and supercells, has been developed. As each type of convective mode has its own severe weather characteristics, regarding e.g. the intensity of wind gusts, the number of electric discharges and the size of hailstones, this tool can be used for decision support for issuing Weather Alarms for various types of severe weather.
• A report on direct and indirect fog detection techniques. Some of these techniques, such as the use of MSG satellite products and ground based LIDAR and SODAR observations have been further explored for the purpose of detecting fog and low clouds at Schiphol airport.
• Development of a (conditional) climatology for fog and low clouds at several observational stations in the Netherlands.
• Implementation and validation of the new Eddy Diffusivity Mass Flux (EDMF) physical scheme for a consistent description of boundary layer and cloud processes in the non-hydrostatic high resolution (2x2 km) weather analysis and forecasting model HARMONIE.
• Development of the 3D Visualization tool “Hirlam Explorer”, which can be used to visualize Numerical Weather Preciction (NWP) model fields in 3D.
• For education and training of operational forecasters on HIW events, we have set up a “Severe Weather Catalogue”. The purpose of this catalogue is to provide a tool, and an E-learning environment, that is used to learn from, and simulate, historic weather events.
• In 2008 we have developed a so called “Meteoscan”, on request of the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations. The purpose of the Meteoscan is to alert professional safety managers for weather events that can cause threats to our natural environment, such as floods, heat waves and droughts.

As a result of KNMI corporate strategic decisions, PPI started several new activities in 2009 in the traffic domain. In cooperation with the Dutch Rijkswaterstaat Center for Transport and Navigation (Dienst Verkeer en Scheepvaart), common fields of cooperation were identified. This resulted in joined activities in e.g. the coupling of weather information and road information, needed for traffic analyses and operational traffic management. Also, a cooperation with the Dutch operational traffic centre (VCNL) was started late 2009, in which operational meteorological support is given in situ (at the centre) upon request, whenever weather conditions interfere with traffic. The winter of 2009 had many snow conditions resulting in 10 cases where meteorological support was requested. Afterwards this new service (‘MOVE’) has been evaluated very favourably and will be continued in the coming years. Besides the strategic programmes High Impact Weather and Traffic and Weather PPI undertakes activities upon request of the other divisions of the Weather department.
Among the many activities carried out during the period 2007-2009 are:

• Development of several new radar-applications.
• Implementation of the new Hirlam version 7.2.
• Implementation of near real-time radar-imagery.
• Improvement of the presentation of weather data on the KNMI Internet/Intranet
• Assimilation of ASCAT- wind data into Hirlam.
• Contribute to a European development of training courses on the meteorological interpretation of Meteosat-MSG satellite imagery (EUMETRAIN).
• Implementation of Cinesat satellite display systems at the weather room.
• Start of the development of a new Meteorological Workstation.
• Development of a satellite/radar imagery based tool for improvement of CB/Tcu-detection.
• Improvement of the de-icing operation at Schiphol airport with dedicated weather information.
• Feasibility study on the implementation of a forecast system at KNMI to avoid collisions of military aircrafts with birds (Flysafe).
• Development of a near real-time web based display application of 10-minutes-weather data.
• Implementation of a FTP-server for the free distribution of public meteorological data.
• Several studies regarding the operational usage of Hirlam.