Extreme weather events have an adverse impact to humans as well as to a large number of social and economic activities. The Mediterranean is an area notorious for severe weather events, mainly due to the formation of Mediterranean storms in autumn and winter and for the occurrence of high surface temperatures (heat waves) during summer.

In order to address this problem, the accurate prediction of adverse weather events and the dissemination of warnings to the relevant authorities and to the public is a very important but also a demanding task. Therefore, the main objective of the proposed work is to build an early warning system that will provide accurate and detailed weather forecasts and it will disseminate the corresponding warnings. In order to meet this objective, a solid partnership is anticipated, comprising scientific groups and end-users from all four EU countries participating in ARCHIMED. The scientific partners will build and demonstrate a system capable of producing detailed weather forecasts, based on observations (mainly from satellites since a major part of ARCHIMED domain is covered by the sea) as well as from high-resolution weather and wave models. In collaboration with the end-users of the project (regional authorities and civil defense agencies) the weather and wave forecasts will be tailored according to their specific needs and the final warning system will be constructed and operated, disseminating the warnings to them.

The main activities of the project will comprise:

• Use of satellite and lightning data and meteo-marine sensors for the monitoring of severe weather events over the area
• Operational use of high resolution modeling for the provision of weather forecasts and for all major meteorological parameters (winds, rain, snow, temperature, etc). Emphasis will be given over the areas/regions participating in the project
• Use of a wave model in case of strong winds and adverse marine conditions near selected coasts
• Presentation of the results in a user-friendly way, in accordance with the requirements from the end-users, and dissemination of the warnings (through a dedicated web page, e-mails, sms to mobile phones etc).

The expected result is the better preparation of the public authorities in cases of severe weather events and the dissemination of the warnings to the public. The main deliverable will be the early warning system over four areas (Southern Italy, Malta, Northwestern Greece and Cyprus), in an operational mode. The system will remain operational even after the completion of the project. Direct beneficiaries of the operation of this system will be the regional authorities and the civil protection agencies participating in the project, as they will possess upon completion of the project, a powerful tool for the protection of life and property by adverse weather conditions.

Το έργο χρηματοδοτείται κατά 25% από Εθνικούς Πόρους και
κατά 75% από το Ευρωπαϊκό Ταμείο Περιφερειακής Ανάπτυξης (ΕΤΠΑ)