The education export was arrange so that two groups of trainees, all together some 15 employees from the Hydro-Meteorological Administration of Vietnam (VNMHA), came to Helsinki and studied on the Kumpula campus. The first group training started in November 2018 and the second group training ended in August. Both groups studied hard, gained knowledge, and learned how to use numerical weather prediction models and meteorological tools. At the end of the training they felt confidant to step up to their next challenge of developing Vietnam’s forecasting and improving the quality of predictions and disaster risk reduction.
INARs contribution was coordinated by Taina Ruuskanen and included lectures by dynamic meteorology group members on tropical deep convection and tropical cyclones given by Marja Bister, lectures on installing and running the Weather Prediction and Forecasting (WRF) model given by Victoria Sinclair and lectures on data assimilation theory given by Heikki Jarvinen. The students also completed exercises and hands-on practical work during the training and were supported by assistants from the dynamic meteorology group (Meri Virman, Mika Rantanen, Lauri Tuppi and Madeleine Ekblom). The students were actively engaged during the lectures asking many questions and were a pleasure to teach. As teachers it was very rewarding to realize that we were having such a meaningful and direct contribution to the improvement of weather forecasting in Vietnam. We wish the students well in their futures!