Dr Sreerekha Thonipparambil was not completely sold on meteorology at first.
It took studying under a particularly talented professor during her master’s degree to convince her to follow meteorology as a career path. A former director at the Indian Meteorological Department, Professor P.V. Joseph guided Dr Thonipparambil into the world of weather forecasting.
“I was very lucky because Prof Joseph not only taught topics covered in his meteorology course, but also provided opportunities to understand the process of research including how to read and understand scientific papers, which helped his students bloom. And at ninety-plus, he’s still my guru today.”
Now, Dr Thonipparambil is paying it forward by conveying her passion for meteorology to people who will use data from the EUMETSAT Polar System – Second Generation (EPS-SG) satellites. As Future Programme User Preparation Expert, her goal is to prepare people for the new data from the first EPS-SG satellite, Metop Second Generation A1 (Metop-SGA1), so that as soon as they become available, people are ready to start using them.
This entails familiarising those who plan to use the data, including weather forecasters and researchers, with the format and content of these new data. Dr Thonipparambil and her team provide users with test data – data that resemble those that each of the EPS-SG instruments will provide – so that users can learn how to read, process, and display them before the instruments start sending out real data.
Crucially, she and her EUMETSAT colleagues also provide users with science support, empowering them with the knowledge of what the data contain and how they can be applied. Hands-on training sessions – both in-person and online – enable users to practice how to access, read, visualise, and use data.
In addition, case studies that focus on a specific meteorological phenomenon or event, such as a blizzard that swept across southern Finland in the winter of 2022, illustrate what users can do now with the currently available data and illuminate how the new data from EPS-SG would help in better predicting the course of a storm, for example.
