Severe Weather Forecasting Programme (SWFP) Caribbean

The idea of expanding the WMO Severe Weather Forecast Demonstration Project (SWFDP) to the Eastern Caribbean area had been discussed in 2015 and 2016 by the WMO Regional Management Group for North America, Central America and the Caribbean. The concept was promoted by the representative of the Caribbean Meteorological Organization (CMO) and British Caribbean Territories within that Group. In mid-2016, a formal request was made to WMO to expand its SWFDP to this region, recognizing that the States and Territories that would be most impacted and involved had already been reviewing existing components that are promoted under the SWFDP concept, such as (i) the implementation of the Common Alerting Protocol ( CAP) standard; and (ii) Impact-based Weather Forecasts and Warnings.

The Regional WMO Management Group decided to build on the existing collaboration between CMO and the French Meteorological Service (Météo-France), particularly those elements that could be built into a SWFDP, such as coordination among Meteorological Services. CMO and Météo-France had signed a set of formal "Working Arrangements" in June 2016 to govern the scientific and technical collaboration between the two institutions.

The Severe Weather Forecasting Programme Caribbean (formerly Severe Weather Forecast Demonstration Project Eastern Caribbean) envisages a key role for the Météo-France operations in Martinique. The Programme is being developed along the following lines:

• (i) The SWFP in RA IV initially covered the Eastern Caribbean (all the islands from Trinidad in the south to Hispaniola in the North). Guyana was added in 2024 by request of the WMO Standing Committee on Disaster Risk Reduction. Then in April 2025, the domain was expanded to include all Caribbean Islands, from Trinidad in the South to the Bahamas in the North, by decision of the Regional Sub-Programme Management Team.
• (ii) As SWFP uses a “Cascading Forecasting Process” – from global to regional to national, Global Centres in Canada, France, ECMWF and the USA provide global Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) and Ensemble Prediction System (EPS) products for the Programme;
• (iii) The Météo-France Centre in Martinique functions as the Regional Forecast Support Facility (RFSF) for the Programme; utilizing the global input to provide daily severe weather forecast guidance products for use by the National Meteorological Services of the participating States and Territories.
• (iv) The National Meteorological Services use guidance products from the RFSF and their own to issue local advisories and severe weather warnings, including liaising with products for use by the National Meteorological Services of the participating island States.
• (v) The RFSF in Martinique maintains close collaboration and coordination with the Miami-based US National Hurricane Centre.
• (vi) An organ of the CMO - the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH)- which, among other functions, is a WMO Training Centre, a WMO Centre of Excellence for Satellite Meteorology and a WMO Regional Climate Centre, provides technical support for the SWFP. It will focus on capacity development through specialized training workshops to enhance the interpretation and use of forecast products in order to improve severe weather forecasting skills and strengthen engagement with users.

An initial Expert Group, along with other invited experts, held project formulation meetings in Martinique (December 2016) and Florida (May 2017). The group developed the Implementation Plan in preparation for a 2018 commencement of activities. The Expert Group was designated as the Regional Sub-Programme Management Team (RSMT) to guide the SWFP and its eventual transition from a project to an operational phase. Once the operational phase is reached, a regional entity would be required to manage the programme activities. The RSMT and the WMO Secretariat agreed that the Caribbean Meteorological Organization (CMO) and Partners will be the regional entity to support SWFP in the operational phase.

The SWFP Regional Sub-programme Management Team, comprises the following members:
    • Mr Emmanuel Cloppet, Météo-France, Martinique (Co-Chair),
    • Dr Arlene Laing, CMO Headquarters (Co-Chair),
    • Mr Joseph Isaac, Meteorological Service of Sint Maarten,
    • Mr Dale Destin, Antigua & Barbuda Meteorological Service,
    • Mr Daniel Brown, NOAA/NHC, RSMC Miami,
    • Mr James Nelson, NOAA/Weather Prediction Center,
    • Mr Andre Giguère, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and
    • Ms Kathy-Ann Caesar, CIMH.