World Meteorological day   ‘Early warning and Early Action’ |23 March 2022

The Seychelles Meteorological Authority today, March 23, 2022, joins other meteorological and hydrological services worldwide in celebrating the World Meteorological day, commemorating the enforcement of the convention in 1950 which led to the establishment of the world meteorological organisation.

This day is celebrated by showcasing the national meteorological and hydrological services’ essential contributions towards the safety and wellbeing of society. The theme chosen for this year’s celebration is ‘Early warning and Early Action’, with emphasis on the use of hydrometeorological and climate information for disaster risk reduction. Early warnings are a vital part of climate change adaptation.

As weather and climate extremes grow in both intensity and frequency inn different parts of the world due to climate change, more and more people are exposed to multiple related hazards than ever before. Impact-based forecast which informs the public and authorities of what the weather will do rather than what the weather will be is therefore vital in saving life and safeguarding property. Synergy between national hydro-meteorological and national disaster management authority is also essential to improve on prevention, preparedness and response, if the public is to be adequately covered by the national early warning systems. Timely response can save many lives and protect the livelihood of the community today and in the years to come.

Although the many challenges, the Seychelles Meteorological Authority (SMA) strives to ensure that early warning reaches those who need them the most. Capacity building and knowledge transfer has allowed the Seychelles Meteorological Authority to better understand climate science and its extremities. This has allowed the Seychelles Meteorological Authority to better assist local authorities in mitigating the impact of climate change.

In addition to mitigation, adaptation is of utmost important, and early warning systems provide a means for adapting the extreme climatic events and reducing the number of casualties. Advancement in technology, supercomputers, dedicated orbiting satellite, and better understanding of the science by the meteorologists has led to an increase in the accuracy of our forecast. Mobile phone alerts via weather apps can now reach our people in an instant.

As the world meteorological organisation promotes impact-based forecast, the Seychelles Meteorological Authority realises that there is still more to be done, to bridge the gaps that exist in its weather observing network, which in turn undermines its local forecasting capabilities. Hence through the world meteorological organisation, we are tapping into various project funding destined for small island developing states, such as that of the climate risk and early warning systems (Crews) initiative, which aims at making communities more resilient to the socio-economic consequence of extreme weather, climate, water and other environmental events.

As a national meteorological authority and a member of the world meteorological organisation we align ourselves and provide our contribution towards attaining the 2030 international agenda on climate action, sustainable development and disaster risk reduction.

Greater coordination between various government agencies and the meteorological services is a crucial step toward improving the response and monitoring of the public for disasters.

The global rise of Covid-19 has complicated the various challenges society is facing, and thus highlighted the need for a multi-hazard approach to address climate change and disaster risk reduction.

Being prepared for the weather can help protect communities from disasters and save them from potential deaths.

Currently we have embarked on the Africa hydromet programme made possible through partnership of the World Bank, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, world meteorological organisation, African Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme, Agence Française de Développement and World Food Programme. The Hydromet programme is aimed at building resilience in Africa with hydromet services. Under the hydromet programme, the SMA will benefit from several automatic weather stations, weather radar and other equipment to boost its observation network.

As part of today’s celebration, Flavien Joubert, Minister for Agriculture, Climate Change and Environment (parent ministry of SMA), will do the honour of signing the hydromet project agreement on behalf of the government of Seychelles.

The commemorative gathering will also include presentation of the international organisation for standardisation’s (ISO) certificate for quality management System (QMS- ISO9001:2015) and the SMA’s localisation plan.

The journey to ISO certification was initiated in 2010, with the pressing need for quality data and products and as part of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) & WMO requirements for all meteorological services mandated in providing aviation services.

Much had to be done in the process and during the last quarter of 2021, the SMA undertook its final audit with British Standards International (BSI) which led to successful certification. With the implementation of QMS, which demands constant monitoring, evaluation, and verification of product and services, the quality of our data and forecasts has improved significantly, and we anticipate that this will increase customer satisfaction amongst our end-users.

A majority of SMA’s meteorologists are expatriates, and this represents one third of SMA’s workforce. Localising such positions is of importance to the SMA and as part of its plan to localise all the positions by 2030, it is anticipated that two students will join university annually for meteorological studies, so that they can join the service upon completion of the studies. At current, two staff are undertaking their bachelor of science (BSc) course in meteorology at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom and two more will be joining later this year.

The SMA has in recent year initiated a series of outreach activities in the form of awareness campaign to schools to attract and encourage the youth in considering meteorology as a career. Subsequently, the SMA will be launching in different secondary schools its ‘METEO club’ whereby a small weather station will be set up and the students will be able to interact and record the different weather parameters.

Contributed by the Seychelles Meteorological Authority