engleski

UTCI forecasts in Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service

Extreme events are expected to be more frequent and intensified in the future as a consequence of global warming. Therefore, the algorithm for calculating heat waves and cold spells that are part of biometeorological forecast in the Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service (DHMZ) as well as the Meteoalarm warning system, needs further improvement. For that purpose, DHMZ wants to implement operational UTCI forecasting being that the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) has been in use for over 10 years and it's based on contemporary science to simulate the human response by sophisticated model. UTCI was calculated for 30 locations in Croatia. The meteorological data used for the calculation of UTCI were hourly model values of air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and mean radiant temperature. Analysis of forecasted UTCI values was done for cases of strong local bora and jugo wind in coastal regions in cold and warm seasons as well as moderate/strong wind in continental regions ; heat wave and normal weather conditions. UTCI values are compared with other biometeorological indices which are operational in DHMZ (Thermal comfort index and Physiological equivalent temperature) and simpler biometeorological indices such as Heat Index in the warm season and Wind Chill index in the cold season. Results for the cases of strong wind, especially in the cold season, show UTCI sensitivity to the wind in comparison with other indices and leaves the interpretation of such values of UTCI debatable.

UTCI ; DHMZ ; ALADIN ; NWP ; forecast

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