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Elita Chikwati Senior Reporter
Zimbabwe will tomorrow join the rest of the world in celebrating World Meteorological Day which is targeted at promoting to attracting attention towards weather and climate for the safety and well-being of the society.
The day will be commemorated under the theme “Early Warning and Early Action: Hydro-Meteorological and Climate Information for Disaster Risk Reduction”.
This year’s celebrations will be held at the Meteorological Services Department headquarters in Harare.
The commemoration will coincide with the groundbreaking ceremony for the radar system which is part of the department’s efforts to strengthen the nation’s early warning system for early action.
The event will be attended by stakeholders who include Government officials, development partners and school children among others.
In a statement, the Met Department said this year’s theme was important in that weather and climate issues have become topical, not just in Zimbabwe but across the globe.
“The issues are mostly around weather and climate extremes as well as safety of citizens and protection of property.
“The theme will make people aware of not only the dangers of these hydro-meteorological hazards but to assist and map ways on reducing the risks associated with such hazards. And this usually starts with early warning. Before people can understand the early warning and know what to do, they need to develop their own area (or community-specific) early actions,” said the Met Department.
The department said it was working with Government development partners to implement ongoing initiatives to give early warning information to the public.
This includes the radar network which will cover the whole country.
“The radars will enable monitoring of tropical cyclones, heavy rain, thunderstorms, hail, lightning, strong winds and other related weather phenomenon. This information will help inform communities and disaster risk managers such as the Department of Civil Protection as well as first responders, to not only reduce the risk but also know areas which are safe.
“Another initiative is the revamping of all our meteorological stations with world-class Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) and digital weather instruments. We hope soon, all districts and wards will have some sort of digital instrument connected to the main server to help monitor the weather at such local level and use the information to offer point forecasts that aid the communities.
“We also are upgrading some of our upper air stations and airports,” said the Met Department.
The AWS are the modern composite instruments that help assess or measure the current conditions and transmit this information to a central server where it can be used to develop the weather forecast.
The Met Department expects that the information will soon be available on their website.
The department is also working on developing a weather mobile application to help keep the public informed.
“In the meantime, our weather is available on Facebook, email, TV, radio, Twitter, WhatsApp, newspapers, telephone consultation and community outreach programmes. We will not leave anyone behind,” said the Department.
Online Reporter