The head of Roshydromet Maxim Yakovenko took office last fall. In the interview, the head of the agency told about the global climate change, the technological capabilities of Russian meteorologists and the difficulties they face because of a lack of funding.

"Our computing power gap is significant"

- Let's face it at once: what happens to the weather? That summer, hurricanes, then for the New Year - no snow ...

- Another cycle. Weather, climate is a cyclical phenomenon.

- So you do not see any drama here?

- Well, it's getting warmer ... The reasons are clear - it's another matter that in recent years climate issues have taken on a political color. Shlestnulis developed, moderately developed and underdeveloped countries: who pollutes whom, who is to blame for the warming.

- President of the United States Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the Paris agreements on climate: the influence of man on the climate in his environment is considered insufficient. So after all, the greenhouse effect, global warming exist?

- Warming is, the greenhouse effect is observed, but to answer this question, one must look deep into the millennia. The natural climatic cycle is not 30 years, but tens, hundreds of thousands of years. At the station "Vostok" in Antarctica Rosgidromet drilled to a depth of 3.5 km and received ice cores, which is more than 400 thousand years old. So, studying these cores, we established four cycles of 100 thousand years duration, which included both glacial periods and warming. Today we are moving to the peak in the next cycle, but to say how it will be and where we will go, in the direction of warming or cooling, it takes several hundred more years.

- And the quality of the current weather forecast and the errors in it are also related to the fact that the weather is changing globally?

- No, the quality of predictions is connected, first, with the observational base, with how you collect the primary information. Secondly, with computing power: how quickly you calculate all this. And you have to count on the "ball", you can not only count on Russia. If you analyze who owns the top 500 supercomputers in the world, then on the first lines there will be national weather services - this equipment costs € 50-100 million, with foreign meteorological services trying to change it every two years. A similar computer has already appeared in Russia, we are now setting it, its performance is 1.3 petaflops instead of the current 0.3. For comparison: the British weather service has 16 petaflops, the Swiss and the French have 6, the Americans have 4, the Chinese have now 4, they will bet 8. That is, our computing power gap is significant. Well, and thirdly, the quality depends on the predictive model or the program on which all this is considered. It must assimilate the data, calculate the errors, and recover the missing data. A good program also costs up to € 0.5 billion.

- And where do you store all this data?

- Roshydromet is one of three world data centers, and the entire archive is stored in storage on servers. The main store is in Obninsk.

- Is the gap connected with financing or with a lack of development?

- With financing and rationality of its use. At the same time, the quality of forecasting is at our best, no matter how some believe: the accuracy of the forecasts we have up to 96%. And those who are unhappy, I want to ask: where do you see the forecasts, from Roshydromet or from other companies that work in this market? I named three criteria for you: observational networks, computing power, and a program for processing. And now ask Yandex, Gismeteo, or, say, Phobos to show their observational network, computing power, prognostic models and programs.

- But in the mornings on "Yandex" it is quite accurate forecasts ...

- The site of the Hydrometeorological Center of Russia meteoinfo.ru is open to all, you can safely take everything from there and creatively process it.

- So it's plagiarism?

- I do not want to say such a word "plagiarism", because in any serious company, in the same "Yandex", serious meteorologists and fine people work. But when we communicate, we ask them three simple questions about the criteria I mentioned above. And the quality of forecasts becomes clear.

- And you do not mind when you use the service "Yandex.Pohoda" or similar?

- "Levada Center" for us conducted market research. Since 2010, the credibility of Roshydromet has grown from 54% to 76%. So citizens trust us. By the way, analyzing the requests, we can say that the peak of interest in the daily forecast falls on the period from seven to eight o'clock in the morning, when a citizen is going to work and deciding what to wear, and more hydrological forecasts: what will happen to the floods, Will flood the suburban area.

"Every subsequent 10 cm of grass growth gives an error in temperature of 0.1 degrees"

- In Russia there is a whole community of amateur meteorologists who try to answer these questions on their own. You do not plan to attract them to work and collect their observations, as it is done, for example, in the US?

- All these methods of interaction are known, we are in fact communicating with foreign colleagues. They need just involvement, this is a marketing move, in fact, in order to take testimony from citizens, you must be sure that they are received on certified and trusted equipment. There must be a system for verifying these data, comparing it with neighboring stations and with a long history of observations. Roshydromet has existed for 183 years, at many stations the parameters are measured and recorded from the same point six times a day for more than 150 years. Still it is necessary to know the conditions under which the readings were received: standard meteorological parameters are taken at a height of 2 m from the ground, at the meteorological site the height of the grass should be 10 cm. Every subsequent 10 cm of grass increase gives an error in temperature of 0.1 degrees. Citizens can perfectly measure and transmit testimony, the question is how to use it.

- In the 1990s, a huge number of your stations were closed ...

"I would not say" huge ". But the stations were closed. The peak of the development of the observational network was in 1987, and in 1991 the Union split, and a significant part of the network was outside of Russia. At the same time observation points are not an expensive pleasure, and we have them only in remote areas 315. If the standard weather station in the center of Russia costs 700 thousand rubles. in a year, the hard-to-reach can cost up to 25 million. When financing is reduced, and expenses grow, it is necessary to close non-critical objects of the observation network.

- If all the weather anomalies are part of long historical cycles, which we can not influence in any way, then what is the use of spending such money?

- You can not affect the cycles in a thousand, ten, one hundred thousand years, but you can predict and correct your actions for a period of, say, up to thirty years. Look at our foreign colleagues: they now have a huge interest in climate research. Let's say that the British meteorological service, which I consider to be the best example for imitation, is conducting 30-year climate forecasts to understand what level of water will be in inland waters in England, which, respectively, should be the height and width of the dams. We are interested in what will happen in 10-30 years with permafrost: we have a significant part of the country in this zone.

"A person sits on criminal responsibility and answers his destiny for the forecast"

- In the aviation industry, there are differences: do I need to include a charge for weather information in the air navigation fee? The Transport Ministry insists that it is necessary, and Rosaviatsiya and FSUE "State Corporation for Air Traffic Management" (CC on ATM) - which is not. As a result, the tariff, according to which the Federal State Unitary Enterprise will purchase from you the weather information, has not been agreed upon?

- Yes, the decision of the issue was delayed, since this issue was entrusted to deal with FAS, and FAS does not revise Roshydromet tariffs, believing that Roshydromet is not a subject of natural monopoly. But the service gave its assessment of the tariff, and now we are coordinating it with the interested departments.

"Could you name him?"

- No, this is commercial information. Citizens reassure: there is and will be a meteorological service for aviation.

"But is it somehow different from the old one?"

- Is different. In the smaller side.

- And now the Civil Code on ATM will you have to purchase weather information?

- Yes. Moreover, in 2010, when the system with meteorological tariffs began to change, in Russia there were about 60 firms that were engaged in meteors at airports. For today, there are only a few airports that are independent from Roshydromet, where we are not interested in entering: Norilsk, Mineralnye Vody, Nalchik, Grozny, Nizhnevartovsk and a couple of other northern airports.

- So you became practically monopolists?

- We work at 248 airfields of the country.

- And the cost of services for carriers during this time has increased?

- No, since 2012 it is not growing. But since 2014, we are positioning ourselves as a natural monopolist in the meteorological support of aviation, since it is de facto. In this regard, firstly, it is necessary to amend the regulations, secondly, there should be a document at the level of the government's instruction on the methodology for setting tariffs and, thirdly, there should be regulations for the provision of this service.

- How do you formulate tariffs and evaluate your work?

- Look, each of the 248 aerodromes has its own class, which determines the amount of information that we need to provide (depending on the flight load, the period of work - around the clock or by the hour, from the distance). From here we see how many personnel we have to be at this airport: for example, if it is round the clock - then three shifts for eight hours. Further we are faced with the question: how to keep specialists, if now our employees have a salary two to three times lower than the average for the subject of the Russian Federation? For example, on the most complicated Moscow air hub, which accounts for 60% of flights, the average salary of an employee outside aviation is 20-24 thousand, in the aviation division - 41-47 thousand rubles. And now imagine a person sitting on criminal responsibility, responding to his fate for the forecast, because in the case of each emergency, they immediately come to us, they say, the weather forecast is bad.

In addition to spending on wages, there is an understanding of what equipment should be to provide flights. It's a lot, and it's expensive - we've already been tortured to prove it to everyone. Because it is necessary to define not only the standard meteorological parameters (temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed, wind direction), but also the visibility range, wind shear, the lower edge of the clouds, thunderstorm direction, satellite and radar information ... The standard set includes about 15 species equipment, this is about 60 million rubles. for one airport. Now consider: there must be double redundancy (that is, two sets), and where there is a high intensity of flights, there are three sets. That is, the investment component is hundreds of millions for only one object, and we have 248. Any equipment has a warranty period of operation, then all repairs are already for the money. The annual mandatory verification of equipment for one airport is more than 1 million rubles.

I'm proud to say that we have one of the best meteorological services in the world and our neighbors copy a lot from us. For example, the Minister of Transport of Japan, having familiarized himself with the work of the Sochi airport - and this is one of the most difficult airfields in the country - decided in Japan to put the same system. But in order to stay on the quality of services that we have now, we need a budget of 5.6 billion rubles. per year only for meteorological support of aviation.

- Foreign airlines, when flying over Russia, where they buy preflight information?

- We have. Both from the airport of departure, if it is a Russian airport, and all transit information - the so-called meteo on the route. I will not tell you a clear tariff, because they are different for different airlines, and for different airfields (the more departures from this airfield, the lower the tariff). But Russian tariffs are less than European ones. If the World Meteorological Organization and ICAO recommend that the cost of the weather is 3-16% of the airport fee, in Russia it is 0.3%.

- Can foreign airlines receive this information from their services?

- There is a certain myth that some foreign navigation services and other weather companies can provide the same quality information. Can not. For one simple reason: Primary information from observations is formed by the organizations of Roshydromet. And who "primary" - he owns better information and gives better predictions.

- A few years ago, many regional airports, mainly in the North-West Federal District, were famous for the weak work of meteorological services, while many are located in regions with severe weather conditions. Has the situation changed somehow?

- To date, there is no such problem. If you conduct the analysis, you will see that up to a certain point these were independent companies, not Roshydromet's systems. Now, in fact, all the northern airfields, aeronautical meteorological groups are in charge of Roshydromet.

- The Ministry of Defense in the report on the state of the national security of the Russian Federation in the field of maritime activity asserts that the Scientific Fleet of the FAO, Roshydromet and Rosnedra has come to a "catastrophic and crisis state". And the most difficult situation for Roshydromet ...

"I'm telling you about the fleet." In the USSR, Hydromet was the largest scientific research fleet. To date, we have 19 vessels left, including 11 scientific-expedition vessels with an unrestricted area of ​​navigation. They are in different technical condition, but all are workable. The youngest is Academician Treshnikov, launched in 2012 and working in the Arctic and Antarctic. The oldest - the legendary "Somov", built in 1974-1975, it provides northern delivery by our meteorological stations. Every year we spend significant funds to maintain the fleet in working order. This is also the report of the Ministry of Defense: for example, repair of a ship costs 200-300 million rubles. per year, as a whole the system needs about 800 million rubles a year.

- What are the main objects or regions for research now?

- World Ocean. Priority, of course, the Arctic and the Antarctic. Of course, the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans are interesting, but to work there, we need other means. There everything is worked by automatic buoys: the buoy is dumped from the airplane, it sinks a kilometer into the depth, there drifts for ten days, measures the parameters of the ocean, floats up, measures the parameters on the boundary of the ocean and the atmosphere, drops everything onto the satellite, and then the memory is reset, and it dives again . And so two years, before changing batteries. Such buoy-type "Argo" costs from $ 3.5 million to $ 5 million. Americans have about 3 thousand buoys, that is, they have invested no less than $ 10 billion only in buoys. And we do not have any. We work on scientific programs with our partners from foreign countries, foreign meteorological services, so we put 350 at the best years in the expedition. Now we are working with a number of KBs to make similar buoys.

- And funding for this already laid?

- It is not laid down, but we are developing a scheme of public-private partnership, because this product will be of interest to others, not only to research organizations. This equipment will be interesting for the same deep-sea research, for exploring the shelf before laying pipelines, for anything. The consumer will be.

- What budget does Rosgidromet need to provide not only support, but also development?

- For the development of the entire Roshydromet system, we must pledge at least 25 billion rubles. It should be noted that according to the federal law of December 19, 2016, No. 415-FZ "On the Federal Budget for 2017 and the Planning Period 2018 and 2019", 16,462 were allocated to support Roshydromet's activities in 2017 , 6 million rubles. - "Kommersant").

- Did you request these funds?

- We request all the time, even trying to break through the federal program "World Ocean" in 2013. We have a critical situation in the Arctic fleet, in the research fleet in the Black Sea, in the Caspian and Baltic. It is connected with the lack of money. A good research vessel for work in the North costs 15 billion, for the inner seas - about 2 billion. To update the fleet and fulfill the existing tasks, it is necessary now six or seven new vessels. That is, only about 40 billion rubles is needed for the fleet.

- Are Russian shipyards capable of building these vessels for you?

- Able.

- Why do we need research vessels?

- Now the standard weather forecast is five days. In order to move to six, seven, ten days, a significant revolution is needed, for this it is necessary to work along the ocean-atmosphere border. We must study the world's ocean and the North, this is part of the weather kitchen. 60% of the weather is formed at the North Pole.

"In the Arctic we are practically monopolists"

- Do you participate in the development of bills on climate?

- Yes, we are the leading organization here.

- What are the key questions now?

- Now the key question is what to do with the Paris agreements. Russia accepted the commitments, but if the Kyoto Protocol implied that countries made severe restrictions, then the Paris agreements imply voluntary commitments. In order to fulfill them, it is necessary, first, to assume these obligations, and secondly, to determine a set of measures for their implementation and monitoring. Moreover, the industry has its own vision, the authorities have their own, and we have been discussing this agreement for two years. In 2019, a document should be prepared, where all this will be spelled out.

- Russia could ratify the Paris agreement earlier?

"Why hurry?" When you assume obligations, you must legally answer for them. Moreover, as I said, this issue has recently shifted to the political plane, and if the country does not fulfill its obligations, then this is the loss of a person on the world stage. Moreover, all our continental and overseas friends, of course, tend to publicly come to the fore on any issue.

- It turns out that the leaders of states today have to somehow balance between national interests and measures to save the world and climate, so it turns out?

- Hard to tell. Here, for example, the statements of Europeans on the transition to green energy. What does this mean? Refusal to produce electricity first on coal, then on diesel and gas, and switching to biofuel in the form of mostly wind and sun. But at the same time, the equipment for power generation using oil and gas has an efficiency of 80% and works for 30-40 years, and the whole infrastructure is already under this: transformers, stabilizers, converters, inverters to transfer, distribute and receive energy. And now comes the alternative energy and says: they say, everything, turn it off. This can afford a small country - for example, Denmark. Large countries - Germany, France, Britain, the United States - despite the political statements, do not seek to implement them. When we began to study this topic at hard-to-reach stations, we analyzed all the voltage cycles, it turned out that the value changes every half second or second. The cloud ran - fell, left - jumped. As a result, the equipment is used for wear, which means that it is necessary to change all the regulating equipment. This will take years and hundreds of billions of euros - for an incomprehensible purpose. Meanwhile, today coal generation allows to provide zero CO2 emissions. Pay attention: the Poles and Germans do not reduce their coal generation, the Japanese did not refuse from the nuclear power industry and after Fukushima.

- And the situation in the world and the sanctioning opposition to the work of your service somehow affect? In the Arctic, for example?

- In the Arctic we are practically monopolists. Well, there oligopoly: the main competitive scientific work has always been between Americans and Russia, somewhere near Norway. To date, in terms of scientific research of Americans, we have pushed aside, Norway is trying to somehow join. In total, we have over 60 programs of cooperation, including with Norway, Finland, Korea, Japan, China. Studies primarily concern ice, its formation and movement, including in the areas of sea routes, climate and atmospheric observation, and, finally, pollution. The Arctic interests everyone, because if you stake out your scientific participation there, then you will stake out your priority, status in this zone. Therefore, within the Arctic Council there are quite a few observer countries, even such as India.

- And does not the political background bother you?

- All pragmatist. We are the same Americans, they say, they say, let's go through scientific institutions to cooperate, so as not to get under sanctions. But the question is whether we need it or not: today we are leaders of scientific research in the Arctic, and this leadership can not be missed.

"Prosecutor General's Office wants everything to be done without money"

- Returning to the Russian problems. The Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation criticized, among other things, Roshydromet's network for monitoring air pollution. Is this justified?

- This is again money issues. Observations of the quality of the environment: air, soil, water, radiation - have been conducted in Roshydromet since 1933. At the time we also adopted regulations that in a village with a population of more than 100 thousand people there should be a point of monitoring air quality, if the city is 500,000 or a million people, there should be more of them. Automatic control station for atmospheric air costs from 6 million to 7 million rubles. At us now 252 cities where such network should be completely constructed. At one time, when funding began to decline, we went to the regional and municipal authorities: do you want to watch air quality? We are ready to manage this. With some subjects of the federation, we have such projects, but for some it is very expensive. There will be funding - there will be surveillance. We do not play politics, we try to close key points in the country. In the Crimea, for example, in 2014, we analyzed everything that happened to the observational network over the previous 20 years (while the Crimean weather service was part of the Ministry of Emergencies of Ukraine, the situation there became deplorable), and included a program to restore observations and analyze the quality of the environment. Now the meteorological network is working, we have installed a mobile automatic hydrological station, we measure the quality of water along the coast by satellite, this year we launched six automatic air quality control stations in large cities, and now, in December, we installed and installed a radiation monitoring system.

- What's with the Crimeans?

- Now you can safely see where any quality of air and water.

- Well, the stations are being updated, in Crimea you created the network almost from scratch, but the Prosecutor General's Office was talking about the fact that some of the substances are not being tracked, including dioxins. Now for many regions there is a burning issue of incineration plants, and people are beginning to wonder if there will be dioxins there.

- Of the 246 pollutants approved by the government, we are ready to measure any. Tell me which subject to measure. There is a standard practice all over the world: for example, 16 substances measure the federal level, 40 substances - regional and 300 - municipalities. And we have them at the federal level 246. Dioxins - no problem. We'll catch, we'll catch, we'll fix it.

- Are dioxins monitored in Moscow and the region?

- At one time it was transferred to the Moscommonitoring, which is under the jurisdiction of the Moscow government.

- And in the Moscow region?

- Tracked when necessary. We make route measurements: this is not a fixed network, but a route one - we go around and look.

- Once a year?

- No, once a day, maybe once a week, depends on the program of observations. The question is money. You can at least pack the entire country with these monitoring stations. Question: Is there money? And the question now is to the municipalities and the regionals - allocate money, put it, we are ready to give the methods, we are ready to take to our labs for analyzes, we are ready to compile the entire system, we have it all.

- It turns out that the claims of the Prosecutor General's Office are justified by a lack of understanding of your work?

- It's just that the Prosecutor General's Office wants everything to be done without money, but it does not happen like this. We explain to them: colleagues, of course, you can send all your decisions to the government, but the conclusion will be one: in order for it to work, it is necessary to give a certain amount of money to Roshydromet.

- And with the possible release of ruthenium, which was recorded Roshydromet in the fall of 2017, also a problem arose precisely from the interpretation of the data? Then the question of his "extreme" content was based precisely on the reports of your department.

- Look, in 1995, and then in 1998, the basic documents of interaction between the authorities regarding the monitoring of dangerous processes were adopted. It says that everything compares with the previous period: for example, if in August there was a background of 0, in September it became 0.1, then you compare 0.1 with 0 and you get an extremely high rate. If you have changed the background five times, you have a high value. Ten times - extremely high. With the maximum allowable concentration (MPC) this is not connected in any way. By the way, we watched the background from July, and the scanty concentration was of no interest to anyone. But against the backdrop of excitement, we collected six departments, conducted a study, identified four basic options, worked them out.

- What was it all the same?

- We had four hypotheses: the fall of the satellite with a radioisotope source, the release in Russia, transboundary transfer from neighboring countries and the transfer of radioactive aerosols in the upper atmosphere from other regions of the world. But the concentration was minimal, and the source could not be determined. To track it, it was necessary to find significant tracks - and there are none. In addition to standard monitoring, we conducted a ground-based monitoring of the ground: they started up their vehicles-a mobile radiometric laboratory that measured everything that was on the routes-and also launched an airplane that measured the content of radioactive substances in the middle layers of the atmosphere. In fact, there is nothing. If there was a significant trace, we would have found it, but since it was hundreds of thousands of times less than the maximum concentration - it is impossible to find anything, it is problematic. And after that, no outbreaks were recorded anymore, now everything is normal.

- Everything is normal at zero, as it was before, or is there a background?

- It is minimal, on the verge of sensitivity of instruments, and does not differ from the values ​​measured in the region until the summer of 2017.

"We did not whirl and do not be greedy"

- Let's go back to the weather forecast. Now on the site of the central observatory there is access to data from the locators of Roshydromet of Russia and Belarus. And there is only gluing the European part of Russia, and then with a delay of several hours, and previously there was information online. Meteorological amateurs are outraged.

- This was the most popular information, because meteorology is needed for high-precision short-term - say, 15-minute - forecasts. This is the top 1 by request.

- To which now the regime of secrecy was introduced?

- No secrecy, it's just that the servers are overloaded with requests. And when you burn the server - you fly the whole system, the backup server burns - in general everything. Why should this be allowed? The sea is asking for queries: everyone wants to understand what dangerous natural phenomena are expected in the next two to three hours. It's a beautiful thing, it should be in every house. I hope that in the coming years we will launch the appropriate software. In the meantime, this is the market. The content of one locator costs 8.5 million rubles. in year. We invested in these technologies the health and mass of extra-budgetary funds of Roshydromet. We are not kurikuli and not greedy, but when instead of raising the beggarly salary we invest in technical development, then why should we then give the received data for free? Especially for those who then paint a beautiful picture and sell this data further.

- Can you sell these data to natural persons?

- You see, in order to work correctly, there must be some calculation technique, how much it costs. If it is clear with large companies how to count, then with citizens - it is not clear. I will answer in a human way: we have an overload of workers. And it is more important for us now to stake out a certain direction of research, develop competence - and then we will be able to deal with citizens and find partners who will deal with them. For example, Yandex is now receiving radar information on a three-year agreement with us. If "Yandex" is interesting - let it develop this direction.

- But you hinted before that "Yandex" receives a part of the data from you for free?

- The agreement applies only to radar data.

- Are the expenses for this direction included in your budget?

- No. Investment expenditures were carried out under targeted programs, and funds are not allocated for maintenance. But budget policy is a delicate matter, I do not climb into it.

- So you are getting out of the way selling this data?

- And at the expense of considerable, let's say, creativity. We have about 40 thousand employees on a beggarly salary. And we are trying to prove to the decision-makers that hydrometeorological information is the most popular information in the world.

This is a colossal, highly profitable market, dominated by the British, the French, now the Chinese are climbing, in some aspects the Japanese and Americans are working. If in Soviet times our system was on the first roles, then now they throw us out. To prevent this, we invest our meager extra-budgetary resources in development.

- What is the threat of a break in technology?

- For example, let's return to pre-flight forecasts. ICAO recommends issuing forecasts for the grid on a map of three by three kilometers. We are now, based on the existing observational network, computing capacities and programs, we can predict 11 by 11. And in the future it will be necessary to give 1.5 to 1.5 or for cities - 0.5 to 0.5.

If ICAO from 2019 transfers the airlines to the grid three by three or five by five, even our first board will be forced to provide a route and request information from the British.

Computing power, ingeniously constructed principles of work, excellent management technologies and a tough approach (wrong with the forecast - fly out) will provide them with a monopoly. The Germans' understanding of this perspective has already made it necessary to restore their meteorology, which does not depend on the British.

"We did not have enough to be accused of traffic jams"

- British successes are associated with a complete reorganization of the system. You headed the department at the end of last year and now you could carry out the necessary reforms. What does that require?

"The reform is ready for us." The first is the rationalization of the observation network: based on financial resources, what is critical is necessary to work and be supported. The second is the investment component: either the government gives money, or we find commercial partners, the product line is practically defined, we will develop it. And the third is working with consumers. We have something to offer the consumer: the weather is needed for aviation, motor, sea, river transport, agriculture.

- Is there a chance that, say, by 2030 Russian hydrometeorology will be able to switch to a commercial basis?

- In 2030, the current employees will be many years, we are not going to wait until our members leave for retirement. We will not be the first in five years, but I hope to significantly improve efficiency.

- For a common man in the street such a reform will lead to the fact that we will see the forecast of Roshydromet in the morning, and there: "At 18:00 in Krylatskoe there will be rain"?

- No problem. Look, when there was a hurricane in Moscow in May 2017, there was not a single claim towards Roshydromet, because in five days all storm warnings were issued. In all areas, except for the runway Vnukovo (where the wind rose to 30 m / s), the forecast coincided by 100%. In those places where people died, the maximum winds did not exceed 14-15 m per second, and we gave from 17 to 21 maximum, so the forecasts were the most accurate.

- But in the Ministry of Emergency Situations, which is responsible for the notification, then they said that Roshydromet allegedly had information about the wind of 27 m / s, which means that the residents were notified but 25 m / s were transmitted, so there was no notification.

"I did not hear such accusations." The warning is issued five days before the emergence of a hazardous event according to the forecast, and on the day of emergency the forecast is issued every half hour. It is possible to raise the entire register of storm warnings, they are all kept.

- It turns out that you need to change the notification and response system?

- After the hurricane in May 2017, there was a series of meetings with the Moscow government, at the level of the leadership of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and then there was a meeting with the president. On our initiative, an agreement is being prepared with the Moscow government and the Ministry of Emergencies to create a system for forecasting short-term, rapidly developing dangerous phenomena. The program is formed, the money in the budget of the Government of Moscow laid, and starting in 2018 we begin to implement it. We will introduce new meteorological stations, install additional locators, develop new software and an alert system. Under the same scheme it was decided to work in the first stage in other large cities, starting with St. Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Khabarovsk, Rostov.

- Why is this system not implemented so far?

- In large cities, among other things, there is still the problem of modeling: it is necessary to understand how the weather changes in dense buildings, for example, near high-rise buildings. It's not just a grid forecast, it's modeling, new software, new models. Satellites here will not help, they do not take below 600 m. But funding for this is laid only in Moscow.

- It turns out that the renovation and construction of higher buildings in Moscow at the site of Khrushchev will change the weather in the Moscow districts?

- The profile of the wind will change.

- And your experts are involved in some assessment of the prospects? Is there anyone who does this?

- There are some developments, foreign experience is known: for example, the Chinese in Beijing issue a forecast every five to ten minutes, and local services in the event of an emergency must arrive in place in five minutes to turn around, drain the sewage or something else.

- Often there is a feeling that we have coordination with the rescue, and most importantly - with municipal services much worse: no matter how snowfall - immediately traffic jams.

- From us traffic jams, fortunately, do not depend, it was not enough that we were accused of traffic jams.

- That is, you have the ideal coordination, do you value it so much?

- There is no ideal, but the coordination is good, workable. Every day at 8:30 operational communication between Roshydromet and the Ministry of Emergency Situations, at 9:00 again confirm the forecast for today, tomorrow and another five days. In a crisis situation, we are on call every hour - every half hour. Problems with the fact that someone did not convey something, does not exist.