A high-resolution snowfall prediction system developed specifically for Greece.
With a spatial resolution of 400 meters, the model provides detailed and precise snowfall forecasts, covering Greece and its neighbouring countries. It utilises temperature, humidity, geopotential height and precipitation data from numerical weather models such as ICON-EU, IFS, GFS and GEM.
This data is used as input to an algorithm that accounts for snow melting processes, identifying areas likely to experience snowfall during approaching cold fronts.
The key feature of the model is its complex mapping process. Potential snowfall regions are projected onto a high-resolution topographic grid consisting of approximately 6 million points. The model's vertical dimension consists of 400 levels (vertical resolution of approx. 10 meters), so the resulting three-dimensional grid encompasses a total of 2.5 billion points. By repeating the process over multiple time steps, a cumulative snowfall map is created.
Since January 2022, the Snow Forecasting Model has been used operationally by Weatherathens. The ultimate goal is to make snowfall predictions accessible and understandable to the public, translating complex meteorological data into user-friendly, actionable information.