Following the conclusions of the working group’s meeting in Ston-Dubrovnik (Croatia - 19.04.2002) and of the WMO meeting in Pretoria (RSA - 10.2002), and within the cooperation between ACMAD and Météo-France on one hand and between ACMAD and DMN Morocco on the second hand, to develop NWP in Africa, a new configuration of ALADIN, called ALADIN-NORAF, is running operationally in Casablanca since the 24th of February. The NWP products issued from this new model should be sent to the covered NMSs via RETIM 2000 or Internet. The final agreement is for the following list of African countries : Algeria, Benin, Burkina-Faso, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra-Leone, Sudan, Togo (Morocco and Tunisia being full ALADIN members).
The ALADIN-NORAF domain covers nearly all the African countries to the north of the equator (from 43.86°N to 0.70°S and from 36.20°W to 56.48°E). This model is run twice a day, at 00 and 12 h UTC, with respectively 72h and 60h forecasts. Data assimilation is realized every 6 hours, using optimal interpolation in a first step. By the end of this year Morocco plans to use raw radiances from TOVS AMSU-A with a 3d-var implementation. The coupling files are provided by Météo-France from the ARPEGE stretched global model. In parallel a local model ALADIN-ALBACHIR, covering Morocco, is run without data assimilation and coupled with the regional model ALADIN-NORAF.
A new users’ group, the Committee of Users of the Model ALADIN-NORAF (CUMAN), has been created by ACMAD to define the best products which should be produced and distributed to the NMSs, and to discuss on the different topics linked to the exploitation of this new model. The first meeting of the CUMAN was hold in Casablanca in 2003.