The 2021-2022 season

In a research-amount approach, the PISSARO project has integrated – during the last cyclonic season – a working group on the reflection and the experimentation of the monthly forecast in the south-west Indian Ocean initiated by the DIROI, the CNRM and the ENM in 2018. The experimentation starts again for this 2021-2022 season and enriches its analysis with new forecasting products (Hovmöller diagrams with wave filtering up to week S6, S2S forecast maps of tropical cyclone trajectories…). PISSARO is associated with the Indian Ocean CREWS (Climate Risk & Early Warning Systems) project to develop user-oriented forecast products. The quality of these “automatic” products will be evaluated by the experts of this working group.

The monthly annotated briefings are available by clicking below (restricted access to participants):

• Briefing n°1 (November 2021)
• Briefing n°2 (December 2021)
• Briefing n°3 (January 2022)
• Briefing n°4 (February 2022)
• Briefing n°5 (March 2022)

A retex takes place at the end of the cyclone season with all the participants in the briefings of this 2021-2022 season in order to establish a balance of the season, to evaluate the monthly forecasts, to discuss the external forcing favouring the initiation of precursors for cyclogenesis and to evaluate the contribution of the new products used for the analysis. An assessment is also made of the quality of the products developed within the framework of the PISSARO project that were assessed. The retex took place on Monday 30 May 2022 in the framework of a working week around the PISSARO mid-project workshop. It allowed to focus on the evolutions of the briefing, to reopen the discussions on the characterization of the MJO. The scores on the forecast of the tropical cyclones of this season allowed to show the qualitative contribution of the human expertise and proposals of improvement of the briefing support were made for the next season.

An exploration of the method for intra-seasonal forecasting in the Seychelles will be carried out next season. Monthly briefings will start again in October 2022!