Meeting Public Needs by an Accurate Weather Forecast

• Course Title: Meteorology 2007, Group Training
• Implementing Partner: Japan Meteorological Agency
• Organizer: Tokyo International Center (JICA TOKYO)

I work at the Meteorological office in Shiraz province, the southern part of Iran. Weather forecasting plays a significant role for every aspect of our livelihood because weather greatly influences agricultural products and people's daily life. Many people make inquiries to our office by phone about short-term to long-tern weather. During rainy season, it exceeds more than 2,000 calls in a day. In Iran, agriculture has good economic potential, hence the needs for weather forecasting has increased steadily. However, our main problems in weather forecasting in Shiraz region are two: forecasting temperature and forecasting thunderstorm and hailstorm. The mixed topographical features in this region, such as mountains and deserts, make weather forecasting very difficult. Another issue is the lack of manpower. Because of very limited number of staff, four of us have to deal with all tasks and services. I devote all my energy to analyze climatic information and process data for forecasting the weather accurately.

JICA International Training and Dialogue course "Meteorology" gave me a good opportunity to refine techniques needed for meteorological services, including Satellite Meteorology, Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP), and Climate Information/data. Japan Meteorological Agency has provided software that I can use for a satellite that covers my area, and I would like to make use of it for our weather forecasting.

A few of my colleagues at Iran Meteorological Organization have participated in this training course before. Based on what they learnt in Japan, they have been developing a new facility for Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model. After returning to my country, I would also like to contribute to its development with them. In addition, I would like to upgrade an existing meteorological museum, targeting a wide range of people: children, schoolchildren and teachers in order to increase the public interest on weather science. The meteorological museum in Kyoto where I visited during a field trip of this course strongly impressed me. It was full of schoolchildren who play with equipments to understand the weather mechanism and observe the modules. I think that the science of meteorology should be introduced more widely in the educational field in much attractive manner. Though less advanced technology in Iran, our manpower retains the 85% of accuracy rate in weather forecasting. Hence, obtaining higher accuracy rate to meet public needs and increasing public awareness are my prime task after returning.