Press Release

Launch of the world's first Portuguese website on global official city weather forecasts (23 March 2004)

The Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) has operated a global official city weather forecast website in English under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for more than two years. Today, the Macao Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau (SMG) jointly with the Meteorology Institute of Portugal (MIP) provide a Portuguese version of the website.

The Macao Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau today launched a new service in Portuguese offering access to the latest official city weather forecasts of the world's cities issued by the National Meteorological Services (NMSs). The new Portuguese website, http://www.smg.gov.mo/wwis/, is operated by the SMG jointly with the MIP under the auspices of WMO. It is the Portuguese version of the World Weather Information Service (WWIS) website operated by Hong Kong. The new website will enable some 200 million Portuguese-speaking people to access the official weather information in their own language.

Mr Lam Chiu-ying, Director of the Hong Kong Observatory, said, "During the development of this Portuguese website, the technical personnel of both the HKO and SMG were in close contact. The launch of this website reflects the close cooperation between us in working towards the goal of providing quality service to a wider audience. It is an excellent example of how exchange of technology can benefit the international community." Mr Lam added, "We are excited to be associated with this project which will enable Portuguese speaking people to obtain official and accurate weather information in a convenient manner."

During the launching ceremony of this website in Macao, Mr. Fong Soi-kun, Director of the SMG, said, "Under the support of HKO and the sanction of WMO, SMG initiates its cooperation with the Meteorology Institute of Portugal on development of the Site of World Weather Information Service in Portuguese language. With this initiative, SMG confirms itself among the world meteorology community as the role to voluntary contribution for the social-economic development and environmental protection."

The new website aims at providing the public, the international community and the media with concise, accurate and up-to-date weather information in Portuguese. It offers authoritative and reliable weather information to all Internet users, who are often bewildered by the diversity of information presented by a wide array of service providers not related to the meteorological community.

All weather information is provided by the respective NMSs, which operate collectively the official worldwide weather observing network with proper forecasting procedures coordinated by WMO. Forecasts for 858 cities of 90 Members are regularly updated, while climatological data are given for 1002 cities of 153 Members.

Users can also follow the links to visit the websites of the NMSs to search for further information.

The public can click the "Portuguese version" icon on the HKO WWIS website (http://www.worldweather.org/) to view the contents.