The first contract, which will be implemented by RARTEL in partnership with Leonardo Germany GmbH, foresees the engineering and installation of the system and the elaboration and dissemination of the data from 7 new radar systems, installed across Romanian national territory. Each position at the various sites will allow for the complete meteorological surveillance of a geographical area of up to 400 km.
The seven, new Band-S Dual-Polarimetric radar systems will be active 24/7 and provide valuable information on precipitation; improved detection and monitoring of cloud structures that produce heavy precipitation, and forecasts for extreme weather phenomena, making a significant contribution to flash flood warnings and forecast procedures throughout Romania. Thanks to this new infrastructure, the country will be able to rely on a modern, updated system that provides data and information in a secure digital environment.
Whereas the second contract involves the implementation of a new system that can receive, elaborate and visualise data from Third Generation EUMESAT (MTG) satellites, with the launch in orbit of the first component within the next few months, together with various other polar-orbiting weather satellites. This infrastructure, which will be installed at AMN’s headquarters in Bucarest, will allow for a tenfold increase in the meteorological data gathered and analysed each day (up to 2 TB/day) from the geostationary satellites, (e.g., MTG), as well as from the polar-orbiting satellites (e.g. Metop-SG, NPP, NOAA).
The enormous volumes of data, which are impossible to analyse with the equipment currently in use, and its improved quality and accuracy will be a huge step forward in the detection and monitoring of potentially hazardous weather conditions, not only in terms of availability and precision, but also in terms of short-term and short-range forecasts. Furthermore, the polar satellite data can be accessed in real-time, which will reduce hazard warning times in the case of severe convective phenomena, which will help protect citizens and the Romanian territory.