Manel Ceperuelo

Manel’s Story

“Since I started at StormGeo in 2012, I have been challenged to do many different things, some easier than others, but that’s why I enjoy working here.”

Manel has always been interested in outdoor and weather-related activities. As a keen snowboarder, surfer and windsurfer, his curiosity and interest in the weather led him to study physics and meteorology.

After graduating with a master’s degree in meteorology and climatology from the University of Barcelona, his PhD, entitled, Identification, Characterization and Nowcasting Convective Cells Using Weather Radars was awarded in 2009.

A few years later, in 2012, Manel sought a position that would put this knowledge and experience to good use. “I decided to apply for a job that suited my professional and personal interests and, from these and a meteorological point of view, StormGeo was the perfect fit."

He continued, "I have been involved in many projects, but for me, the most interesting ones have been in developing weather visualization tools, on-demand image production and pre-production forecasting tools. I also enjoy research projects related to StormGeo’s performance, such as those that deal with data processing, data flow, data inventory and common tools for big data processing.”

Manel has expertise in working with various data formats, which can be difficult, but gives him an overview of different systems. “This allows me to make and design tools for handling different data formats.”

Something Manel says he is proud of is creating, from scratch, a first approach to a meteorological workstation, called RHAP (Rainfall Events and Hailstorms Analysis Program). Developed during his PhD, this workstation allowed him to plot and process together numerical model data, weather radar data, point observations and geospatial data.

He was also responsible for creating a flexible nowcasting system, based on radar observations and optical flow, for predicting precipitation intensity two hours ahead. He says, “Severe weather events are my passion, especially from data processing and forecasting points of view.”

“I like to make continuous improvements, so I appreciate that StormGeo is always open to proposals from our talented research team. Of course, being surrounded by friendly and talented colleagues makes the work even more enjoyable.”

Expertise

Severe weather, radar nowcasting, meteorological workstations, weather forecasting, image production, data science

Publications

Coupling FEPS, WRF and CALPUFF to assess forest fires air quality impact in Castilla y León (Spain)
M. Ceperuelo and M. Picanyol
EMS Annual Meeting Abstracts 2011

A comparison of statistical and explicit short-term hydrological forecasting techniques
G.E. Van Knowe, K.T. Waight, M. Ceperuelo, J. Aymami, S. Pares, S. Arumugam and J. Oh
24th Conference on Hydrology 2010

Improving hail identification in the Ebro Valley region using radar observations: probability equations and warning thresholds
M. Ceperuelo, T. Rigo, M.C. Llasat and J.L. Sanchez
Atmospheric Research, Volume 83, Issues 2-4, February 2007, Pages 415-426 2009

Forecasting the radar parameters of convective cells
M. Ceperuelo and M.C. Llasat
XXX Jornadas Científicas de la AME 2008

Evaluating the use of boxplots for estimating surface hail size
M. Ceperuelo, T. Rigo and M.C. Llasat
Proceeding of ERAD 2008 2008

Rainfall regionalization on the basis of the precipitation convective features using a raingauge network and weather radar observations
M. C. Llasat, M. Ceperuelo and T. Rigo
Atmospheric Research,Volume 93, Issues 1-3, Pages 474-482 2007

Rainfall events and Hailstorms Analysis Program (RHAP)
M. Ceperuelo, M. C. Llasat and T. Rigo
Advances in Geosciences, Volume 7, pages 205-213 2006

Study of 11 September 2004 hailstorm event using radar identification of 2-D systems and 3-D cells
M. Ceperuelo, M. C. Llasat, L. Lopez, E. Garcia-Ortega and J. L. Sanchez
Advances in Geosciences, Volume 7, pages 215-222 2006

Estimation of convective precipitation: The meteorological radar versus an automatic rain gauge network
M.C. Llasat, T. Rigo, M. Ceperuelo and A. Barrera
Advances in Geosciences, Volume 2, pages 103-109 2005

Education

Manel holds a PhD in Meteorology from the University of Barcelona.