Heading to the 21st century

Group to study Croatian weather system, advise how to upgrade it

By Julianna Parker

The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plains, but where does it go in Croatia?

That’s what officials from the Office of Weather Programs and Projects at the University of Oklahoma will find out as they conduct a year-long modernization feasibility study for Croatia’s Meteorological and Hydrological Service (DHMZ).

They’ll determine how the eastern European country’s weather service can be brought into the 21st century. Much of the infrastructure is left over from the time it was under the Soviet Union, said John T. Snow, interim director of the OWPP and OU’s dean of the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences.

The team of 10 from the OWPP was chosen through an international, competitive bidding process to undertake the $500,000 study.

The contract was advertised through the U.S. Trade Development Authority, which granted the Republic of Croatia the money for the feasibility study on the condition that a U.S. company would do the study, said James E. Hocker, research associate in the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences who is the only full-time staff member of the OWPP.

OU heard about the call for proposals. The college’s reputation in meteorology preceded it and probably helped the team get the contract, said Ken Crawford, director of the Oklahoma Climatological Survey and Regents’ professor of meteorology.

“I think our reputation has put us on the map in just about every country in the world,” he said.

Now that OU has been selected to do the study, the team members, led by Crawford, will travel to Croatia over the next year about three to five times each.

The team is a diverse group of individuals from the National Weather Center, including economists to conduct cost-benefit studies, a computer weather prediction expert and two radar meteorologists.

Team members will evaluate the monitoring equipment and forecasting techniques in Croatia, Crawford said. Then they’ll come up with a plan to modernize the country’s monitoring, analysis, forecasting and warning systems.

Then they will submit the plan to the Croatian government to determine what will actually be implemented, Crawford said. The government would invest about $38 million to upgrade the system.

This kind of study is important because adverse weather, flooding activity and environmental hazards cost the Croatian economy about $218 million per year, Hocker said.

“It’s actually very expensive for most countries to deal with weather,” he said. The U.S. has done very well predicting weather with radar technology, and now the U.S. team will be able to help Croatia, he said.

“This is one of those things where the U.S. has a clear technological lead … better than anyone else on the planet,” Snow said.

The Republic of Croatia has a lot of potential, and this study will help it move forward, he said. It’s been a European vacation spot since the Roman Empire, and it’s poised to develop tourism even more — if it can reduce the impact of severe weather, he said.

The team’s study in Croatia will also help the U.S. and Oklahoma. In its final report, the team will recommend the updates that should be made to Croatia’s system, including the companies that would be good for the job.

“My guess is we’ll recommend what we know best, which is U.S. technology,” Crawford said.

The OWPP certainly seems to know its stuff. The office was created about 18 months ago, and this is the first project to be funded. The team seemed excited at the prospects it opened up.

Since beginning work with Croatia, the OWPP has been approached by Morocco and the Philippines to do similar studies, Snow said.

“Certainly we hope that this is the first of many such projects and our goal in all of this is to use the skills and knowledge we have here on sort of the international scene,” he said.