Met Service on the hunt for fair-weather friends

Philip Hamilton, Gleaner Writer

Imagine having your own personal weather station in your backyard which not only provides local updates, but allows you to share this information with the National Meteorological Service as well as the rest of the country.

While this may sound far-fetched to many Jamaicans, the idea is actually part of a community weather observation project currently being explored by the Met Service to enable it to provide accurate forecasts for different geographical regions across the island.

The programme, which is popular in several countries, involves collecting weather data from privately-owned automatic weather stations. The data is remotely fed to the Met Service.

"In the absence of these additional stations, outside of what the national authority can provide, your forecasting mechanism and forecasts are a little off. It would benefit from additional data," meteorologist Ricardo Clarke told The Gleaner.

Clarke noted the idea of personally owned weather stations was not new to Jamaica as private individuals and companies have established such units for projects or specialised use over the years.

"What we'd like to do is formalise such a programme. We want to tell persons with such instruments we'll help you process the data. Give it to us and we'll all benefit," he said.

Not enough stations

Clarke said while the Met Service operates approximately 200 weather stations across the island, the number remains far below that needed by the organisation to provide a truly accurate picture of the weather in various areas across the island.

The cost of the weather stations can run from as low as a few hundred dollars to as high as US$16,000 for high-end stations.

Evan Thompson, acting director of the Met Service and Clarke's boss, said in recent times, some companies have partnered with his organisation to install some of these instruments used for weather observation.

'In some of these cases, the data actually does come back to us. We are actually working along with them and we share the infor-mation that's there, having included some of it in our own operations," Thompson said.

Companies such as the Coffee Industry Board, Coconut Industry Board, as well as some sugar estates, rely heavily on data from their personal weather stations measuring rainfall, wind and sunshine in areas to guide them in crop planting.

Thompson noted the need for more personal remote weather monitoring stations to assist the Met Service in providing accurate, up-to-date forecasts was noticeable during recent weather events such as Tropical Storm Nicole, following reports of freak storms in sections of the island.

However, he admitted the Met Service's limited resources restricted it from installing additional automatic weather stations.