The Observatory lends support to India's Commonwealth Games

Following the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the 2010 Shanghai World EXPO, the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) was invited again to render support to another important international event- the XIX Commonwealth Games, which was opened on 3 October 2010 in New Delhi, India. Similar to the last two events, the Observatory's nowcasting system "SWIRLS" was deployed out of Hong Kong once again to support the very-short range rainfall forecast service in New Delhi. The chief developer of the Indian version of "SWIRLS", Mr Kuldeep Srivastava of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), said, "It is the first collaboration between IMD and HKO. The technology transfer involved has turned out to be a big challenge as everything had to be supported remotely and carried out within a very tight schedule. Fortunately, the experts from the Observatory were truly helpful throughout so that the whole process, including case study, system tuning and software installation, could be accomplished smoothly." The bilateral effort also includes publication of a research paper at a related symposium of the Indian Meteorological Society held in May 2010.