  During European Space Weather Week 15 two plenary sessions were held to
review the status of operational space weather forecasting. The first session
addressed the topic of working with space weather service providers now and in
the future, the user perspective. The second session provided the service
perspective, addressing experiences in forecasting development and operations.
Presentations in both sessions provided an overview of international efforts on
these topics, and panel discussion topics arising in the first session were
used as a basis for panel discussion in the second session. Discussion topics
included experiences during the September 2017 space weather events, cross
domain impacts, timeliness of notifications, and provision of effective user
education. Users highlighted that a 'severe' space weather event did not
necessarily lead to severe impacts for each individual user across the
different sectors. Service providers were generally confident that timely and
reliable information could be provided during severe and extreme events,
although stressed that more research and funding were required in this
relatively new field of operational space weather forecasting, to ensure
continuation of capabilities and further development of services, in particular
improved forecasting targeting user needs. Here a summary of the sessions is
provided followed by a commentary on the current state-of-the-art and potential
next steps towards improvement of services.
