Introduction

This WMO project on world city forecasts is to explore the wider exchange and availability of official weather information on the Internet. In view of this, a WMO-sponsored web site - World Weather Information Service (WWIS) is established as a centralized source on the Internet for media to access official weather information issued by National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) efficiently and effectively. The WWIS web site is developed and maintained by the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) of Hong Kong, China.

Background

The Commission of Basic Systems (CBS) of World Meteorological Organization (WMO) at its Twelfth Session at Geneva, 27 November - 8 December 2000 discussed the need to strengthen the recognition of the public weather services that NMHSs provide through the setting up of a pilot project. The Commission agreed that a Collecting Center should be designated to collect weather forecasts supplied by participating NMHSs. The Collecting Center would generate an integrated product of major city forecasts around the world and make it available for use by all WMO Members for dissemination to the public and the media.

A WMO-sponsored web site - WWIS is set up to display the weather information supplied by participating NMHSs. The Commission agreed that Hong Kong, China, would take the lead in further developing the above concept and act as the Collecting Center.

By February 2005, four language versions emerged viz. English, Arabic, Chinese and Portuguese. At the CBS 13^th Session at St. Petersburg, 23 February - 3 March 2005, the Commission agreed to turn the pilot project into an operational component of the Public Weather Services Programme and that the current host Members, viz. China; Hong Kong, China; Macao, China; and Oman, would continue to maintain the Chinese, English, Portuguese and Arabic versions of the WWIS web site respectively. The Commission also designated Hong Kong, China to serve as the coordinator of WWIS operation in collaboration with other WMO Members.

In September 2006, Spain joined the other 4 hosts and launched the Spanish version for public access.

In January 2007, France launched the French version, making the total language versions to six.

In March 2009, Germany launched the German version, making the total language versions to seven.

In August 2009, Italy launched the Italian version, making the total language versions to eight.

In March 2011, Russian Federation launched the Russian version, making the total language versions to nine.

In December 2011, Poland launched the Polish version, making the total language versions to ten.

Objectives

World Weather Information Service (WWIS) Web Site

Climatological information and official observations.

1. The name and logo of participating NMHSs providing the information;
2. Hyperlinks to the NMHS's official web sites (if available);
3. Hyperlinks to the Local Tourism Authority's web sites (if available);
4. Forecasts for the next few days for selected cities including temperature range, weather in a few words and weather icons;
5. Past and possibly current weather; and
6. Climatological information and official observations.