While there has been much progress in recent years in understanding the large-scale dynamics of the tropical atmosphere on intraseasonal and longer time scales, there has been rather less focus on the morphology and dynamics of tropical weather systems that are of importance in day-to-day weather forecasting, perhaps with the exception of tropical cyclones, but including monsoonal weather.
Forecasters in tropical regions have few conceptual models at their disposal and there is a notable lack of useful theory that they can call upon. Moreover, numerical weather prediction in the tropics is often of limited value for forecasting weather involving convection, probably because of the paucity of appropriate mesoscale observational data. Although there have been some improvements in the situation over the years there seems an urgent need for a forum in which forecasters can come together with researchers to make more rapid progress on this problem, which is important for northern Australia and other nations subject to tropical weather.
Accordingly an international workshop on the subject of tropical weather forecasting was organised. A number of forecasters from forecast offices responsible for weather forecasts within the tropics were invited to articulate their problems and a number of leading atmospheric dynamicists to review the state of knowledge relevant to tropical weather forecasting, including the special requirements of numerical weather prediction in the tropics.
The meeting had a format similar to the WMO International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones, with mainly invited talks, review talks and plenty of time for discussion.
It was limited in size and restricted mainly to persons likely to make an active contribution to discussion. The aim was to stimulate future research that is focussed on relevant forecasting problems in tropical regions.
The workshop was held in Darwin, Australia during late January, 2001, sponsored by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the World Meteorological Organization, with the support of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographical Society. Darwin is a small, but modern city with excellent hotel and recreation facilities and is the location of the Bureau of Meteorology Regional Forecast Centre in the Northern Territory of Australia, perhaps one of the best equipped forecast centres in the tropics with its association with the Darwin Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre (RSMC).
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