A prototype alert system for severe weather around the Maltese islands and the central Mediterranean has been set up by the Physical Oceanography Unit (PO-unit) of the International Ocean Institute-Malta Operational Centre (IOI-MOC) at the University of Malta.
The system provides alerts well in advance of any extreme weather through a dedicated website which can be accessed from the websites ioi.projects.um.edu.mt:8080/riskmed or www.riskmed.net after following the 'Riskmed Malta' link.
The work on the website service was co-ordinated by the research institute's director Aldo Drago. It is part of a project called Weather Risk Reduction in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean (Riskmed) and is partly financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Interreg III Community initiative, which forms part of the Structural Funds Programme for Malta (2004-2006).
The project is led by the Greek University of Ioannina, and brings together a consortium of eight partners from Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Malta with interests and expertise in the subject.
The alert system makes extensive use of satellite observations, the optimisation of high resolution meteorological forecasting models, the combined use of wave models for forecasting hazardous sea conditions, and also the use of meteo-marine observations aiming to provide useful information in key areas.
The web interface developed for the alerting system is mainly dedicated to furnish early warnings at sea and allows remote users to view predicted alerts of extreme weather and sea conditions within nine sub-areas within the Central Mediterranean. The alerts are issued on the basis of high resolution meteorological forecast fields prepared by the MARIA/Eta Atmospheric Model and the wave WAM model, both developed and running operationally at the Physical Oceanography Unit (PO-Unit). Alerts are categorised as yellow, orange or red depending on the severity of the event.
The PO-unit is engaged in research covering coastal meteorology, hydrography and physical oceanography with a main emphasis on the study of the hydrodynamics of the sea in the vicinity of the Maltese islands.
The unit promotes activities in operational oceanography by the installation and maintenance of permanent meteo-marine observing systems, and the provision of atmospheric and marine forecasts which can be accessed from the Cape Malta website www.capemalta.net.