ANSO-MISSPAD (The Multi-model-Integrated Subseasonal-to-Seasonal Prediction and Application in Disaster Risk Reduction) Project successfully held  "Workshop on Extreme Precipitation Forecast in China and Thailand" online on November 18, 2022, which was co-sponsored by  Phuket Rajabhat University, Thailand, the World Meteorological Centre Beijing Office of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), Dalian Maritime University, Beijing Normal University (BNU) and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IAP-CAS). The workshop brought together more than 40 experts and scholars from China and Thailand.

Online Workshop on Extreme Precipitation Forecast in China and Thailand

In October 2022, the northern, northeastern, and central parts of Thailand were hit by hefty rainfall, causing severe floods in many regions, including Phuket Island, which has experienced the worst flood in the last 30 years. In this context, the experts and scholars from China and Thailand discussed the extreme precipitation disasters in Thailand and the development of extreme precipitation prediction technology under the support of the ANSO-MISSPAD project. Dr. Jun Jian (Dalian Maritime University, China), Dr. Porpattama Hammachukiattikul (Phuket Rajabhat University, Thailand), Dr. Qing Bao (IAP-CAS, China), Dr. Yi Wang (World Meteorological Centre Beijing Office, National Meteorological Centre of CMA, China), and Dr. Jing Yang (Faculty of Geographical Science of BNU, China) jointly organized the workshop.

Severe floods caused by extreme rainfall in Phuket Island, Thailand, in October 2022

At the beginning of the workshop, Dr. Qing Bao introduced the distinguished guests: Program Officer Shuwen Xu from ANSO Secretariat, Associate Dean Werapong Koedsin from Faculty of Technology and Environment, Phuket Campus, Prince of Songkla University (PSU),  Professor and Assistant Dean Xiaofan Yang from Faculty of Geographical Science of BNU, Directors and Dr. Xiaobo Liu and Tianli Xu from Kathmandu Center for Research and Education, CAS-TU. Participants expressed that the workshop provided an excellent opportunity for experts and scholars from China and Thailand to communicate in the field of precipitation prediction technology and fully recognized the scientific significance of the workshop and its role in promoting international cooperation.

Dr. Porpattama Hammachukiattikul from the Department of Mathematics of Phuket Rajabhat University described the impact of the flood disaster on Phuket Island and gave a report entitled "Analysis of extreme rainfall and flooding in Phuket City ."Dr. Qing Bao from IAP-CAS introduced the background, objectives, and progress of the ANSO-MISSPAD project and announced that the sub-seasonal to seasonal prediction products had been applied to the B&R region to provide early warning services for meteorological disasters. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Junior Professional Officer Kanghui Zhou talked about "Using deep learning to predict severe weather with multisource data," He also highlighted the WMO AI Pilot Project. Yanlan Fan from BNU introduced the application of a stretched-grid downscaling prediction system. She gave a report entitled "Gain of the stretched-grid downscaling prediction system for spring extreme rainfall prediction over China at the one-month lead."

Academic reports

In addition, Presentations were made in turn by Dr. Veeranun Songsom from Environmental Geoinformatics Technology, Phuket Campus, Prince of Songkla University, Thailand, Senior Engineer Li Gao from Center for Earth System Modeling and Prediction of CMA and Lingjun Zeng from IAP-CAS, with the titles of "Recent incident in Phuket: Major rainfall and landslides," "Introduction of Extreme Rainfall Forecast Products by CMA-GEPS" and "Impacts of humidity initialization on MJO prediction: A study with FGOALS-f2 S2S system". The workshop discussed the application of extreme precipitation prediction technologies and the extreme precipitation events in Thailand this year.

This workshop helped promote bilateral academic exchanges and also helped to promote in-depth cooperation on the operational extreme precipitation prediction between China and Thailand. The experts in the workshop discussed the main contents of the China-Thailand Multi-Party Memorandum of Understanding and the technical methods for downscaling the global model data to local areas. They emphasized the importance of a dynamic early warning system for flood and landslide disasters and the importance of academic cooperation in relevant fields. The participants looked forward to future cooperation between China and Thailand, including further data sharing, joint research on meteorological disaster early warning system, and regular meetings and exchanges.

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