Met Office Director touches on importance of early warning systems

As the world commemorated World Meteorological Services yesterday, Director of the local met office Dale Destin highlighted the importance of early warning systems in the country.

“The reality is meteorology is a global effort. We need to collaborate to gather data and to be able to give updates and warnings. There are gaps and the way we close those gaps is by collaborations to ensure has this service to alert to potentially hazardous weather when it comes our way,” Destin said.

He added the media as a major part to play in closing that gap to ensure that everyone everywhere gets the message.

Work is ongoing at the Met Office to fill those gaps as well.

Several projects are expected to come on stream. One being the SOFF (Systematic Observations Financial Facility project. This investment would come through a multi-partner funding agency.

“That project is aimed at injecting between one to two million dollars into the met service in particular in terms of getting our observational system, our communications system, the technologies up to a global standard so that we can contribute optimally to the global framework,” Destin explained.

The Early Warning for All initiative is also being looked at. This Green Climate Fund (GCF) investment will be in the range of two to three million dollars. It would see upgrades not only in the met office but for all disaster preparedness institutions, like NODS, law enforcement and healthcare professionals.

“It looks promising. There are other projects we are looking at like Ocean Buoys which monitor our oceans,” he added.

Continued social media outreach, improved forecasting processes, improved communications, continued training of staff were a few other avenues Destin mentioned are being addressed.

“We continue to work on improving our skills with different workshops. We will be sending someone to the National Hurricane Centre once again for training. We also sending someone back to Barbados for further training,” Destin mentioned.

World Met Day was celebrated under the theme “Closing the early warning gap together”.