How do you get hold of something as difficult as the behavior of a wave? At Infoplaza, running our own meteorological models means everything, as it allows us to forecast really accurate from offshore to nearshore.
With wave modeling, we can offer a tailored solution to nearly every client. In some big projects monitoring multiple swells and their direction is important, and other projects require waves not being higher than 1 meter. So to make sure every offshore operation can occur in the most safe and optimal way possible, how do we do that?
To answer that question, we need to talk to Infoplaza’s Sara Loureiro Solla, metocean modeler and Daniëlla Gur, meteorological business engineer. Both part of Infoplaza’s Weathertech team, they are responsible for our in-house wave models.
We asked them 7 short questions to get to know them and their expertise.
Daniëlla: Observations are very important to make our work possible. We receive data from different sources like the Dutch RWS so we can validate and improve the configuration of our models. Also clients offer data to our forecasters so they can use them to understand the limitations of the model in an area and apply corrections when required.
Sara: Tuning the model can be difficult, but it’s fun as well!
Daniëlla: The unexplained errors every programmer gets to see once in a while are a classic challenge. Modelling is fun to me because seeing a model improve along the way is really satisfying.
Daniëlla: My interests were not particularly in waves, but I got really interested in meteorology and Python and data processing during my Master Geoscience & Remote Sensing. At Infoplaza I was able to work at a weather company that creates its own tools and that tunes its own models - what’s not to love?
Sara: I knew from the start of my studies, Physical Meteorology, that I wanted to do something with modelling. The fact that I grew up practically next to the sea in Galicia, an autonomous region in Spain, probably helped as well! There’s lots of rough, unsettled weather there – most of the time it’s stormy with high waves.
Daniëlla: In general, in the long term, it’s machine learning obviously.
Sara: And for us specifically, we have several things planned, from a new form of data assimilation to improvements to the nearshore model.
At Infoplaza, we love talking about our expertise. We gladly explain how it can support your offshore operations. Just send us a message and together we can come up with a solution.