Discussion about forecast/warning responsibility for STCs/TCs in the Mediterranean Sea

[FireRat]

Sadly, it sometimes takes a disaster of this magnitude (significant loss of life/damage) for changes to be introduced and new policies put into place.

We'll see if Daniel winds up being the catalyst that effects a change to where the MED SEA becomes an official basin with a designated RSMC.

Sadly this is true. Over 2000+ dead from Daniel's disastrous floods so far, according to latest news sources. Apparently a dam burst in the middle of the night where most deaths took place, absolutely unreal, horrible disaster.

[Teban54]

Daniel was essentially a Katrina for Libya, after already breaking rainfall records in Greece with a damage total of at least 2 billion Euros there (likely costlier than Cat 3 Idalia). If that's not enough of a wake-up call to the basin, I don't know what is.

[doomhaMwx]

Sadly, it sometimes takes a disaster of this magnitude (significant loss of life/damage) for changes to be introduced and new policies put into place.

We'll see if Daniel winds up being the catalyst that effects a change to where the MED SEA becomes an official basin with a designated RSMC.

If this disaster doesn't convince the WMO or other concerned authorities, I don't know what will.

[SconnieCane]

Honestly, and I'm saying this as carefully as possible, in areas like the MED basin the local countries need to step up and pay for it. I don't see that happening, and I don't think it's a US agencies responsibility to take it over. It's too bad really. If I was in charge ....

IIRC there was a plausible scenario that had Hurricane Leslie of 2018 splitting the Straight of Gibraltar and continuing into the Mediterranean.

[Kingarabian]

Times have changed. It's time for it to be recognized. But I agree, surrounding countries should pay for it.

[Woofde]

Times have changed. It's time for it to be recognized. But I agree, surrounding countries should pay for it.

I'm not sure it would make sense to make the Mediterranean its own basin, it's not geographically considered an ocean like almost every other basin is. I'm pretty sure technically speaking, the Mediterranean is a sea of the North Atlantic. I'm not sure why it wouldn't be included with the rest of the North Atlantic the same way we do with the Gulf.

[Sciencerocks]

The med has about 2 tropical storms per season so it is very much past time for an agency to start writing advisories for them. The central pacific doesn't even get that many grown systems normally.

A couple of hurricanes have hit Italy in the past few years for godssakes.

[TheDreamTraveler]

Daniel could end up as the deadliest tropical cyclone since Haiyan, and it's not a surprise. This sort of disaster is abated by preparedness, informing the public, and informing governments. How are you going to do that with Mediterranean TCs when there is nobody to tell people what is going on? The models were showing the danger of extreme rain impacts many days before landfall. If there was an agency to interpret the model output and prepare a message to the public on what could be expected and how to prepare, Libya could've had five days more warning on how to handle this situation. The absence of a RSMC in the Mediterranean is actively costing lives and the next situation like this is not a matter of 'if' but 'when'. It is well past time for the WMO to take action.

Well said. Something needs to be done and hopefully this is what finally causes them to take action. Somebody needs to be in charge to forecast and inform and warn the public of these systems. They're entirely unique to this part of the world and cause similar destruction like tropical cyclones in other parts of the world.

[ChrisH-UK]

I wasn't going to post in this thread again after reading since after my last post, but I have to say it once again...

Here in the UK and EU we have it in hand. As posted before, the Hellenic National Weather Service is responsible for forecasting storms in that area since 1999 as per IMO and WMO, and European ESTOFEX is responsible for issuing notices etc Europe wide of severe weather and storms.

There is no need or reason why NOAA's NHC should be responsible for the Mediterranean. If some of the arguments here were true then the NHC should be responsible for forecasting and post notices for the entire world.

Let's finish this thread and move on.

[TorSkk]

Well, I mentioned it a few years back with another medicane - it would probably take a major tragedy for anyone to consider creating an agency, and unfortunately it happened. I hope anything is actually done

[TorSkk]

I wasn't going to post in this thread again after reading since after my last post, but I have to say it once again...

Here in the UK and EU we have it in hand. As posted before, the Hellenic National Weather Service is responsible for forecasting storms in that area since 1999 as per IMO and WMO, and European ESTOFEX is responsible for issuing notices etc Europe wide of severe weather and storms.

There is no need or reason why NOAA's NHC should be responsible for the Mediterranean. If some of the arguments here were true then the NHC should be responsible for forecasting and post notices for the entire world.

Let's finish this thread and move on.

We literally do not "have it in hand". The same Wikipedia page you linked explains there is no agency for monitoring TCs in the Mediterranean:

Mediterranean tropical-like cyclones are not considered to be formally classified tropical cyclones and their region of formation is not officially monitored by any agency with meteorological tasks

Since 2005, ESTOFEX has been issuing bulletins that can include tropical-like cyclones, among others. No agency with meteorological tasks, however, is officially responsible for monitoring the formation and development of medicanes, as well as for their naming.

Given the low profile of HNMS in forecasting and classifying tropical-like systems in the Mediterranean, a proper classification system for Mediterranean tropical-like cyclones does not exist. The HNMS criterion of a cyclonic eye for considering a system a medicane[5] is usually valid for a system at peak strength, often only hours before landfall, which is not suitable at least for forecasts and warnings.

HNMS may be resposnible for the marine warnings, but they don't issue reular forecasts for those cyclones
ESTOFEX is not a proper agency "responsible" for anything - it's the European Storm Forecast Experiment run by a group of mets.
Also, the NHC, along combined with CPHC and JTWC literally "post notices for the entire world".
In my opinion we hardly have it in hand if five thousand people have just died in Libya

[Europa non è lontana]

The next meeting of the WMO's Advisory Group on Tropical Cyclones (https://community.wmo.int/en/advisory-group-tropical-cyclones-ag-tc) is in December. If there's going to be any move towards designating a TC-RSMC for the Mediterranean, it would probably be then.

[DanieleItalyRm]

I wasn't going to post in this thread again after reading since after my last post, but I have to say it once again...

Here in the UK and EU we have it in hand. As posted before, the Hellenic National Weather Service is responsible for forecasting storms in that area since 1999 as per IMO and WMO, and European ESTOFEX is responsible for issuing notices etc Europe wide of severe weather and storms.

There is no need or reason why NOAA's NHC should be responsible for the Mediterranean. If some of the arguments here were true then the NHC should be responsible for forecasting and post notices for the entire world.

Let's finish this thread and move on.

The Hellenic National Weather service gives warnings of bad weather and strong sea storms, like the Italian civil protection, but does not mention tropical or subtropical cyclones. they call everything "low pressure". Estofex is unofficial and often cannot distinguish between tropical and subtropical cyclones. For Libya he had not announced any tropical cyclones or rains of similar magnitude. Official warnings for a TC and exact classifications would make danger warnings more obvious to the population.

[Kingarabian]

Well some good news is that the WMO is now aware.

“If there would have been a normally operating meteorological service, they would have issued the warnings and also the emergency management of this would have been able to carry out evacuations of the people and we would have avoided most of the human casualties,” Petteri Taalas, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) secretary-general, told reporters in a news conference in Geneva on Thursday.

In regards to TS Daniel.

[AJC3]

Well some good news is that the WMO is now aware.

“If there would have been a normally operating meteorological service, they would have issued the warnings and also the emergency management of this would have been able to carry out evacuations of the people and we would have avoided most of the human casualties,” Petteri Taalas, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) secretary-general, told reporters in a news conference in Geneva on Thursday.

In regards to TS Daniel.

Source for the quote above...

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/libya- ... ss-missing

[al78]

I think every gale force cyclone around the world should be named. European windstorms are named (hence the naming for some of the Medicanes) ...

The UK Met Office names storms that are likely to have a significant wind and/or rain impact on the UK (I think if it triggers an amber warning according to their risk/impact matrix). Unfortunately for Europe as a whole the naming system is a mess. Unlike tropical cyclone basins there is no one agency that has overall responsibility for Europe so a windstorm can be named (differently) by the FUB, the south-west Europe group, the UK Met Office and Met Eireann, and if that wasn't enough names, the tabloid media occasionally try to pre-empt and confuse everyone by putting a name in front of an approaching gale before any official agency has named it.