WMO | Public Weather Services (PWS)
World city weather forecast and climate information
TheWorld Weather Information Service (WWIS)” Web site provides weather forecasts and climate data for cities of the world. Forecasts on the Website originate from national weather services worldwide. These official weather services operate standardized national weather observing networks and follow rigorous forecasting procedures. Their weather forecasts are authoritative and reliable, which cannot be matched by those from unofficial sources. For example, it is rather common to find temperature forecasts for a certain place from various unofficial web sites differing from one another by several degrees celcius. The reasons for such discrepancies are that these forecasts may not be provided by the official weather services and that the owners of the web sites also may not have the essential local forecasting experience.
The city forecasts provided by the“World Weather Information Service (WWIS)” now cover all parts of the world and is hosted by WMO Members in different languages as follows: by China in Chinese; France in French; Germany in German; Hong-Kong, China in English; Oman in Arabic; Italy in Italian; in Portugal in Portuguese; Russia in Russian; and by Spain in Spanish. WWIS won the Stockholm Challenge Award - Environmental Category in 2008, for having a strong vision, demonstrating global objectives, being a robust sustainability model and, demonstrating a viable model for weather and climate information exchange.
In addition to daily weather forecasts, severe weather is another common concern. Among the various types of severe weather phenomena, tropical cyclones have attracted most attention due to their enormous ability to destroy.
The Hong Kong Observatory developed, and continues to maintain, the “Severe Weather Information Center (SWIC)” Web site for the World Meteorological Organization of the United Nations. Information on tropical cyclones, rainfall, thunderstorms and heavy rainfall originating from official weather services in different regions of the world forms the essential content of the web site. Whenever a tropical cyclone develops, a tropical cyclone symbol shows up on the front page of this web site indicating both its position and strength. Furthermore, users can make use of the links provided in this web site to find more information about these tropical cyclones such as forecast tracks and warnings issued.
In the context of supporting and implementing the single official voice policy of WMO, the SWIC web site aims to provide easy and timely access for the public and the media of all warnings of severe weather worldwide.
Apart from providing weather information, these two web sites also furnish links to the official weather services all over the world. One may treat this web site as a portal of the meteorological community, which enables official weather web sites and information on official weather services worldwide to be accessed with ease.
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