WEATHER APP ‘THE MOST ACCURATE’

>> King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology University Ladkrabang (KMITL) has released “WMApp”, a new weather app for smartphones designed to keep up with the growing number of Thais accessing information on their smartphones.

Launched recently at KMITL, the app provides details of weather and related information such as surface precipitation rates, temperature, humidity, wind speeds and directions, earthquake reports and water paths for hydrometers in detail for each country in Asia and Europe.

The WMApp, which is available for Apple and Android users, also comes with standard features like daily and hourly forecasts along with accurate and detailed 5-6-day weather forecasts. It gives users a brief look at the weather in their chosen location, with more details provided at the tap of a finger.

Chinnawat Surussavadee, a lecturer at KMITL’s faculty of telecommunications engineering and founder of WMApp, said all data and information, except earthquake reports, that appear in WMApp are produced using computer modelling systems and precipitation retrieval algorithms called AMP and JPP.

Mr Chinnawat said an AMP precipitation retrieval algorithm collects precipitation data from observations of passive millimetre-wave satellites, while the JPP precipitation retrieval algorithm retrieves data from observations of passive infrared satellites. “With these technologies, we can do cyclone and flood forecasts five days in advance,” he said.

Mr Chinnawat claimed that WMApp is now the most accurate source of weather forecasts and warnings in Southeast Asia as most weather forecasting in Thailand still relies on observational data.