| CAFO Operations
CAFO Operations's role in the weather
forecast
The General Forecasting
Division operates mainly through the Central
Analysis and Forecast Office (CAFO), located in Glasnevin Headquarters.
It links with a dependent forecast office in RTÉ, the national
radio and television station. CAFO Operations comprises of a team of
Meteorological Officers, Senior Meteorological Officers and Meteorologists.
Once the
raw data have been processed successfully by I.T.,
they are then passed on to the team of Meteorological Officers within
CAFO Operations. They work 24 hours a day on shift rotattion, insuring
that charts are presented in a meaningful user format. Each hour, a new
set of hourly
charts must be printed, which record
observations from all around Ireland and the UK. Each station on the
map displays information on the following elements: temperature, pressure,
pressure tendency, amount of cloud, cloud type, dew point, visibility,
wet bulb temperature, wind speed and direction. This information is
then plotted on the charts for each station.
If there are sferics (thunder/lightning) around Ireland or the UK, then
these are marked in on the chart. Should any Irish data be omitted, I.T.
is contacted immediately. In some instances, data may have to be plotted
by hand. The chart is passed to the forecaster on duty who then analyses
it.
CAFO Operations is also responsible for a number of other technical charts,
i.e. Surface Atlantic Charts and Tephigrams. These
are also analysed by the Meteorologists to aid them in their
forecast preparation. In
addition, certain climate figures are recorded for each day and are used
by forecasters when reflecting on the day's weather.
Once all the necessary information is accessible and plotted, it is
then passed to the CAFO Forecaster to determine the weather ahead.
Weather forecasts are issued accordingly. TV
and Radio forecasts are
presented mostly by the forecasting team themselves. Once forecasts
are complete they are passed back to CAFO Operations to be faxed
and emailed
to State Agencies and customers alike. At this stage forecasts are
updated on the Met Éireann website.
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