Regional weather experts from Southern African countries are scheduled to meet in Lusaka, Zambia, on 30 January 2025, to improve forecasting efforts.
This is to improve the dissemination of relevant and life-saving weather forecasts and severe weather warnings to vulnerable communities.
The multidisciplinary team, made up of meteorologists, scientists, economists, and user engagement specialists, is on their second intensive testbed in Zambia, with centres in South Africa and Mozambique as part of the Weather and Climate Information Services (WISER) programme’s Early Warnings for Southern Africa (EWSA) project.
Ishaam Abader, Chief Executive Officer of the South African Weather Service and the country’s Permanent Representative with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), said “the WISER EWSA project targets disadvantaged urban communities while also strengthening meteorologists’ weather modelling and forecasting capabilities and capacity. The project collaborates extensively with the existing disaster risk reduction and community-based organisations, including people with disabilities, to respond to weather nowcast alerts in a timely manner and ensuring that nowcasts are easy to understand and reach the right people.”
Mozambique and Madagascar continue to pick up pieces following the devastation brought about by Tropical Cyclones Dikeledi and Chido over the last two months, a multidisciplinary team of meteorological experts will be gathering in Lusaka.
Around mid-December 2024, Chido, with strong winds of more than 200 kilometres per hour, battered Mozambique, reportedly killing more than 100 people, and injuring over 800. Far more destructive than Dikeledi, Chido blew the roofs off many homes, leaving hundreds of thousands of people in distress.
Project partner, Dr Adriaan Perrels of Tyrsky Consulting in Finland, said The WISER EWSA project will produce estimates of socioeconomic benefits of these warning services in the participating countries.
“We are investigating several – possibly complementary – options for resourcing the service provision in Zambia after the EWSA project ends” he said.