2018 HEPEX workshop, Melbourne, Australia: Breaking the barriers

Contributed by James Bennett (CSIRO) and local organizers team

In the afterglow of the highly successful 2016 HEPEX workshop in Quebec City, Canada, the planning for the next HEPEX workshop in 2018 in Melbourne, Australia is underway.

Melbourne is far way for many HEPEXers, so we thought we would give an early warning of this workshop to give you all some planning time. With this in mind, we plan to hold the workshop in February 6-8, 2018.

This is the height of summer in Melbourne, and we hope it will coax a few cold northerners to the antipodes. Melbourne is a thriving modern city, with a number of major research and operational centres interested in hydrometeorological ensemble forecasting (e.g. the Bureau of Meteorology, the University of Melbourne, Monash University and the CSIRO).

The theme for the workshop is ‘breaking the barriers’ to highlight current challenges facing ensemble forecasting researchers and practitioners and how they can (and have!) been overcome. We wish to highlight the following topics:

• using ensemble forecasts to improve decisions in practice,
• extending forecasts in space (including to ungauged areas) and across lead-times, from short-term to sub-seasonal to seasonal forecast horizons,
• using ensemble forecasts to maximise economic returns from existing water infrastructure (e.g. reservoirs), even as inflows and demand for water change,
• using ensemble forecasts to improve environmental management of rivers,
• applying ensemble forecasts for agriculture,
• searching for better/new sources of forecast skill,
• balancing the use of dynamical climate and hydrological models with the need for reliable ensembles,
• communicating forecast quality and uncertainty to end users.

More generally, we welcome contributions on new and improved ensemble hydrological prediction methods as well the application of existing methods in practical and operational settings.

As before, the Melbourne 2018 workshop will go for 3 days and include both oral and poster presentations on all aspects of hydrological ensemble prediction. We will give an update with abstract submission dates and more information – stay tuned!