A delegation led by Mr. P.W. Ng, Senior Scientific Officer of the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO), visited various centres of China Meteorological Administration (CMA) at Beijing (the National Meteorological Centre, National Meteorological Information Centre, National Climate Centre), and the Jiangsu Provincial Meteorological Bureau (JPMB) from 14 to 18 January 2008.

In Beijing, the delegation exchanged with the Mainland counterparts the latest technical development in daily forecast operations, public weather services, climate prediction, applications of numerical weather prediction models and information dissemination, etc.  The delegation also met the well-known palaeo-climatology expert Professor Zhang De-er.  Her research group grasps the climate information of ancient China from tons of old literature and even went to the original places to prove the correctness of the information.  We were deeply impressed by her devotion to the climatological research.

The delegation visited the JPMB after the journey of Beijing and was briefed by their Deputy Director-General, Mr Ren Jian, about the meteorological operations of the province. The delegation also visited the new meteorological centre at Su Zhou to familiarize its operations.  The highway network weather monitoring system in Jiangsu is the first such system in China.  This system includes a network of automatic weather stations and electronic display panels alongside the highway and is an excellent example on integration of the weather and traffic services for the public.

HKO delegation visited the National Meteorological Centre (NMC)
(Right: Mr. P.W. Ng of HKO, left: Mr. Qian Chuanhai, Deputy Director of Typhoon and Marine Meteorological Forecast Centre, CMA)

A photo of the HKO delegation with counterparts of
Jiangsu Provincial Meteorological Bureau (JPMB)
(Third from left: Mr. P.W. Ng of HKO, third from right: Mr. Ren Jian, Deputy Director-General of JPMB)