An international weather forecasting demonstration project took place from 2 September to 21 November 2000. This period encompasses the Sydney 2000 Olympics and Paralympics. Five state-of-the-art forecasting systems from Great Britain, Canada and the U.S. will demonstrate their ability to forecast thunderstorms, rainfall rate, wind and severe weather. These forecasting systems are called nowcasting systems to emphasize the very precise nature of the forecasts. The nowcasts are for specific times and locations for periods from a few minutes to 6 hours.

The high potential impact of weather on large outdoor sporting events such as the Olympics provides an opportunity to test if state-of-the-art nowcasting systems can provide important services to emergency managers with crowd control responsibilities and sporting venue managers who are responsible for event scheduling.

Following the Paralympics in November the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) will host a 10 day workshop for countries around the world to get hands-on experience with the participating nowcasting systems. This is particularly for countries considering the deployment of advanced Doppler weather radars.

This Forecasting Demonstration Project has been organized by the World Meteorological Organizations World Weather Research Program (WWRP). The primary responsibility for forecasting for the Olympics is with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The WWRP nowcasting systems will be located alongside the Bureau of Meteorology forecasters as will be meteorologists representing each of the WWRP nowcasting systems.

The WWRP nowcasting system are:

1. Thunderstorm Auto-nowcaster developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado. This system provides 0-1 hour nowcasts of thunderstorms, rainfall rate, and winds.
2. Warning Decision Support System developed by the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman Oklahoma. This system helps forecasters make warnings of severe storms.
3. GANDOLF developed by the United Kingdom Meteorological Office and Salford University, England. This system provides 0-3 hour nowcasts of storm cells and rainfall rate.
4. NIMROD developed by the United Kingdom Meteorological Office. This system provides 0-6 hr nowcasts of precipitation rate.

Canadian Radar Decision Support System developed by Atmospheric Environment Service in Downsview Ontario Canada. This system classifies thunderstorms by their potential severity.

The weather observational network will consist of two Doppler radars, 21 surface weather stations, 3 wind profilers and an upper-air balloon sounding site.

An international team of experts will independently verify the accuracy and usefulness of the nowcasts.