International conference and workshop will be held 7-9 Feb. in Skopje organised by the National Hydrometeorological Service in cooperation with World Meteorological Organisation and the USAID.

The events are held within the international project “South-East European Multi-Hazard Early Warning Advisory System.”

Agriculture Minister Mihail Cvetkov, Director of National Hydrometeorological Service Oliver Romevski, officials of the World Meteorological Organization and other European organizations in sphere of meteorology and hydrology will attend the conference.

South-East Europe has experienced a significant number of severe meteorological and hydrological events in recent years. Heavy precipitation has caused floods and landslides. Droughts have increased the incidence of forest fires. People have suffered under prolonged heat and cold waves. There have been severe thunderstorms and hailstorms. These natural hazards have had significant impacts: human lives have been lost, property and infrastructure damaged, and the functioning of key sectors impaired.

"South-East European Multi-Hazard Early Warning Advisory System (SEE-MHEWS-A)" project is to assist Members in the region to achieve objectives. The development of the SEE-MHEWS-A will support the NMHSs in fulfilling their mandate to provide timely and accurate warnings in order to minimize the impacts on people, infrastructure and industry of hazardous weather events and to protect the lives and livelihoods of the people.

SEE-MHEWS-A will provide operational forecasters with effective and tested tools for forecasting hazardous weather events and their possible impacts in order to improve the accuracy of warnings and their relevance to stakeholders and users. On a single virtual platform, the system will collect existing information, products and tools for the provision of accurate forecasts and warnings to support hazard-related decision-making by national authorities.

Furthermore, the system will function as a cooperative platform where forecasters from different countries can work together on the identification of potential hazards and their impacts, especially when impending weather hazards may have potential impacts in many countries.

SEE-MHEWS-A is funded by U.S. Agency for International Development/The Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) and implemented by World Meteorological Organisation with support to Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI).