Russian funds help weather office
The United Nations Development Programme yesterday, through Russian Government funding, donated weather forecasting equipment to the Fiji Meteorological Services, which is expected to boost services. Director Ravind Kumar, while receiving the equipment at their office in Namaka, Nadi, said the equipment was expected to boost the 32 automatic weather stations which played a very significant role in transmitting every ten minutes to the national weather forecasting centre.
Through the equipment, he added, the national weather forecasting centre would be able to get vivid data on the weather forecast and preparations.
“As you have seen over time that a number of weather stations were deteriorating in terms of sending out information to the national weather forecast centre which has been rectified and is now 99 per cent operational,” Mr Kumar said. “The equipment will enable us as soon one of those sensors goes down we will be able to readily replace them and keep them in line at least at 99 per cent.”
The equipment mainly consists of sensors for use in automatic weather stations to check air pressure, temperature, soil moisture and wind speed.
Most of the weather stations, Mr Kumar said, were based in maritime zones across the country and access to those areas was quite dif- ficult.
“That is why we have opted for an automatic weather station which doesn’t need any human intervention on a day-to-day basis. It just needs collaboration and maintenance every six months,” he added. UNDP Assistant Administrator and Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, Haoliang Xu said the equipment would also assist Fiji in disaster response.