Visit to the Seychelles Meteorological Authority, partner of the PISSARO project

A week of very fruitful exchanges took place from 5 to 12 May 2022. With Andréa Cachard, ENM (Ecole Nationale de la Météorologie, France) student engineer, François Bonnardot, head of the EC team at DIROI (Direction interrégionale de Météo-France pour l’océan Indien), we went to the Seychelles in order to meet our Seychelles partner, the SMA (Seychelles Meteorological Authority). Vincent Amelie (CEO of the SMA) welcomed us in the DRMD (Disaster risk management department) where we met his team of forecasters.

I presented the progress of the project to our Seychellois colleagues and they presented their activities. We were able to discuss the needs in terms of S2S forecasting in Seychelles. Andrea presented a product specifically developed for the SMA, a monthly-scale ITCZ forecast product. Through this discussion, we established that for the rest of the project, we will be able to maintain this collaboration through regular exchanges. The SMA will be integrated into the experimental monthly forecast briefing activity carried out at DIROI (more details here) and the ITCZ product can be tested by the SMA team during the next austral summer season. We also wish to set up joint research activities, notably on weather patterns in the Seychelles and on the factors that would drive them on an intra-seasonal scale.

I would like to thank Vincent for the incomparable quality of his welcome and the whole of the SMA for the quality of the exchanges we have had. Our collaboration has been greatly strengthened. While waiting for the next big meeting in the Seychelles around June 2023 (the PISSARO summer school on subseasonal forecasting), our collaboration looks like being productive!

Hélène Vérèmes (DESR/LACy)

Photo caption:
Group pictures of the participants in this week of exchanges around intra-seasonal forecasting within the framework of the PISSARO project, with representatives of the DIROI, the SMA, the stakeholders including the DRDM (Victoria, Seychelles).