Launch of Korean-language version of World Weather Information Service website

8 December 2015

The Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) and the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) announced today (December 8) the launch of the Korean-language version of the World Weather Information Service (WWIS) website (http://worldweather.wmo.int/kr) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The launch was officiated by the Director of the HKO, Mr Shun Chi-ming, and the Administrator of the KMA, Dr Ko Yunhwa, after their meeting held at the HKO on co-operation under a Memorandum of Understanding between the two organizations signed in 2012.

The WWIS pools the latest official weather forecast of over 1800 cities around the world. The new website enables the Korean speaking communities to browse the latest weather information in their own language.

Mr Shun said, "We are very pleased to collaborate with the Korea Meteorological Administration to jointly launch the Korean-language version of the WWIS website. It is exciting that more countries are joining this meaningful WMO project to better serve the public around the world. Travellers will find the service useful when it comes to accessing weather information of the cities they plan to visit, in particular, in their own languages."

Dr Ko said, "I am very delighted to launch the Korean language version of the WWIS. This website in Korean language is an excellent example of how co-operation between Korea and Hong Kong contribute positively to the exchange of authoritative weather information on a common platform for the benefit of people around the globe."

In 2000, the WMO decided to establish an official website on world weather and entrusted the HKO to develop and operate this website. The WWIS website (http://worldweather.wmo.int) is the world's first website featuring global official city forecasts issued by the respective national weather forecasters. The WWIS was declared operational by the WMO in 2005. In 2008, the WWIS website won the prestigious Stockholm Challenge Award in the Environment Category.

At present, 134 WMO members supply official weather forecasts for 1859 cities to the WWIS. The website also contains climatological data for the cities, which is useful for travel planning. The cumulative total number of page visits to WWIS reached 1.5 billion up to 2014.

To visit the Korean-language version of the WWIS website, users can either go to the link http://worldweather.wmo.int/kr or via the WWIS English website (http://worldweather.wmo.int) and click "한국어". MyWorldWeather, the mobile application of WWIS, is also available in Korean language version for iPhone and Android.

With the launch of the Korean-language version, the WWIS is now serving the international communities in 11 different languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.