The World Weather Websites of WMO provides new services

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) World Weather Information Service (WWIS) and Severe Weather Information Centre (SWIC) websites hosted by the Hong Kong Observatory launched two new services today (December 2):

(1) A web page on global official weather observation (cloudiness and rain) is added to the WWIS website (Figure 1).

(2) A recap function to display the tropical cyclone tracks of the past seven days is added to the SWIC website (Figures 2 and 3).

The two services represent another attempt to enhance these websites after the launch of the "Heavy Rain/Snow" web page in the SWIC website earlier this year.

The WWIS website has previously been providing official weather forecasts and monthly mean climatological information for major world cities. The new service provides, for the first time, global official weather observations on cloudiness and rain. The observed information is presented on a map format for easy reference. The weather data has a wide coverage and is updated eight times a day. For the public and the media, this web page could well be the fastest channel for obtaining an integrated view of the latest weather of the world.

The new service in the SWIC website is to provide a recap function for displaying the tropical cyclone tracks. In the previous design, the locations and other information of each tropical cyclone was deleted once it had dissipated. However, there are people who would like to obtain relevant information about the tropical cyclone several days after it has made landfall. To cater for such needs, the new product keeps the information on the intensities, locations and tracks of all tropical cyclones that have occurred in the past seven days, allowing the public and the media to retrieve easily the needed information after the tropical cyclone has landed and dissipated.

Those who are interested in the new services are welcome to visit the following websites for details:
http://www.worldweather.org/cloud/index.html
(Note: At present, only the English version of WWIS website has this global official weather observation "Cloudiness & Rain" service)
and
http://severe.worldweather.org/past.html
(Note: At present, only English version is available for the SWIC website)

Figure 1    Official Weather Observations - Global Distribution of Cloudiness and Rain

Figure 2   Tropical Cyclone Tracks Recap Function - Global Page

Figure 3    Tropical Cyclone Tracks Recap Function - Enlarged Regional Page