Weather-ready, climate-smart
HEAVY RAINFALL. Sweltering heat. Crops ravaged by drought. A threatening tropical storm! These are all examples of meteorological phenomena that affect our lives in negative ways and for which we need all the help we can get in order to endure them.
The Meteorological Service in Jamaica is always concerned with mitigating the impacts of these natural hazards where, although we may not be able to prevent them, we can improve in our ability to predict their occurrence and warn of their deleterious effects. This is achieved through the building of professional and technical capacity, the upgrading of tools through the increased use of technology, constant reengineering of products, and the development of more efficient processes for the delivery of services.
Over the past year, the organisation has re-entered the social media landscape, rolled out SMS messaging and diversified its media outlets through LOOP News in order to leave no stone unturned i n delivering regular forecasts and warning messages to the Jamaican public. This year, on World Meteorological Day, tomorrow, March 23, the organisation will expand this strategy with the launch of a new product designed to communicate warning messages in a bold, unambiguous, effective, graphic i nterface available wherever there is Internet. It is called ‘SmartAlert’ and it delineates Jamaica’s terrestrial and marine territories that are expected to be impacted by any of a range of natural and even man-made hazards.
Twitter will ser ve as t he platform for the launch as the Meteorological Service observes World Meteorological Day 2018 under the theme ‘ WeatherReady, Climate-Smart’.
This may be previewed at the Met Service booth at the Nature for Water exposition at the Girl Guides’ headquarters today.