Weather updates are vital for a nation’s citizens, as they are key to protecting against the devastating effects of storm surges, cyclones, flooding, heat waves, droughts and more. With improved forecasts and better ways to disseminate them, a country can save lives and money by reducing economic loss.
While national forecasts have improved over time, the quality gap remains large in many countries around the world—particularly for low-income communities. The problem is largely due to the fact that far fewer land-based instruments and radiosondes are in use, and that local meteorological stations are less frequent. Furthermore, there are currently much cheaper technologies to collect and transmit meteorological data—including sensor-carrying drones that can run surveys over a given area to build higher resolution maps. These could be used to quickly gather and report rainfall, temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity and more to a central weather agency that can then turn it into accurate forecasts.
Forecasts can be delivered via a variety of channels—including newspaper, television and radio broadcasts as well as social media. They can also be sent to marine pilots at sea via RTTY and Navtex codes, allowing them to take into account factors like wind direction and speed, wave heights and periodicity, and tides as they plan their route. In the future, it will be important to continue developing these channels and to make sure that the right information is delivered at the right time for end users. This will require continued research into how different groups of people perceive risk and uncertainty.