The African Center of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD), working with the World Health Organization-World Meteorological Organization (WMO-WMO) Joint Climate and Health Programme, has launched the first Africa Climate-Health Desk.

Hosted at ACMAD in Niamey, Niger, the desk is intended to help countries across Africa use weather and climate information to support health planning, prevention and response. The organizations said the initiative comes as extreme heat and other climate-related health hazards increase across the continent.

According to ACMAD and its partners, the new unit will translate climate information into guidance that can be used by health authorities, hospitals, communities and decision-makers.

Continue reading First Africa climate-health desk launched at Meteorological Technology International.

Caribbean meteorological, disaster management and media leaders met in Trinidad and Tobago on January 20-21 to strengthen coordination and communication around early warning systems across the region.

The Caribbean Meteorological Organization (CMO), in partnership with the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) and the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU), convened the ‘Regional Workshop on strengthening knowledge exchange and mutual understanding between national meteorological and hydrometeorological services, national disaster risk management offices, and the media’. The event was held under Phase 2 of the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) Caribbean Project, implemented by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Continue reading Caribbean workshop focuses on strengthening early warning communication at Meteorological Technology International.

Researchers at the ICARUS climate research center at Ireland’s Maynooth University (MU) have launched a new citizen science project that seeks to rescue historical African weather data that the institution says is vital for research about a continent that is vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

The Weather Archive Africa project is seeking volunteers to sift through four million images of historical weather data from 43 African countries to determine which images are usable for their research.

The images come from the African Centre of Meteorological Application for Development (ACMAD) collection. They were transferred to fiche and film by ACMAD, the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium and the World Meteorological Organization in the late 1980s/early 1990s and were subsequently converted to electronic images by the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Continue reading Maynooth University calls for volunteers to rescue historical African weather data at Meteorological Technology International.

The National Meteorological Agency of Djibouti (ANM) successfully issued its first Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) warning in September through its new website.

A CAP warning is a standardized format for exchanging all-hazard emergency alerts and public warnings. It delivers real-time actionable risk information to relevant stakeholders and at-risk communities.

The upgraded platform, developed by the WMO Regional Office for Africa, is said to be the first centralized hub for disseminating critical risk information and strengthening early warning communication in the country.

The modern CMS web template has tools for marketing integration and for advanced interactive climate data visualization to personalize user experience.

Continue reading Djibouti successfully issues first Common Alerting Protocol warning at Meteorological Technology International.

The WMO, in partnership with the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), is supporting Uganda’s Department of Meteorological Services (DMS) in upgrading its operational warning systems to enhance its capacity to deliver timely and effective severe weather warnings.

In June 2025, FMI experts visited Uganda to initiate the implementation of the SmartMet Alert system, which is designed to strengthen warning services.

The system automates the generation of weather warnings, improving timeliness and accuracy, with the integration of the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), a global standard that enables dissemination across multiple channels such as radio, television and mobile platforms.

Continue reading Uganda to upgrade early warning systems with support from FMI and WMO at Meteorological Technology International.

Heatwaves in Africa are “hotter, longer and more frequent”, according to new research from the University of Illinois Chicago, which attributes these changes to “increased greenhouse gas and black carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels”.

“Raising awareness of heatwaves is critical to saving human life,” said Akintomide Afolayan Akinsanola, head of the Climate Research Lab and assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences in the UIC College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “In a developing continent like Africa, where the capacity for adaptive infrastructure is relatively low, heatwaves can have greater consequences.”

Heatwaves can harm ecosystems, reduce agricultural productivity and strain energy systems, as well as being a threat to human life.

Continue reading African heatwaves are “hotter and longer than 40 years ago”, according to UIC research at Meteorological Technology International.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Meteorological Organization’s Systemic Observations Financing Facility (SOFF) have launched a five-year project to modernize Chad’s meteorological network, improve weather forecasts and anticipate the consequences of climate events in the country.

Updating local forecast technology

The US$6.98m project, led by WFP in collaboration with Chad’s National Meteorological Agency (ANAM) with technical support from GeoSphere Austria, involves installing six new surface stations and four upper-air stations, and renovating 27 existing stations across the country. The project prioritizes national capacity-building to enhance synergies between development programs and maximize the SOFF project’s impact.

Continue reading Chad’s meteorological network to receive US$7m from World Food Programme and SOFF at Meteorological Technology International.

Belize, the Bahamas and Suriname have developed Country Work Programmes (CWPs), strategic frameworks that will guide each nation’s efforts to reduce disaster risks and adapt to climate change over the next three to five years. These plans mark a step toward integrating Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) with Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) across the Caribbean.

These efforts were organized in a collaboration between the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), as well as with government agencies, regional and international organizations and community representatives to drive policy analysis, planning and prioritization for disaster resilience.

Continue reading UNDRR develops disaster and climate action plans to increase Caribbean resilience at Meteorological Technology International.

The UN climate change conference has concluded with a pledge from developed nations to contribute at least US$300bn annually to support climate adaptation.

After two weeks of intense negotiations, delegates at COP29, formally the 29th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), agreed to provide this funding annually, with an overall climate financing target to reach “at least US$1.3tn by 2035”.

This summit had been dubbed the ‘climate finance COP’, and representatives from all countries were seeking to establish a new, higher climate finance goal. The target, or new collective quantified goal (NCQG), will replace the existing US$100bn goal that is due to expire in 2025.

Continue reading COP29 ends with US$300bn annual climate financing agreement at Meteorological Technology International.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR) and the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has launched gram panchayat-level weather forecasts. A gram panchayat is a village council.

Daily local forecasts

With this initiative, daily gram panchayat-level forecasts will be available for nearly all gram panchayats across India, covering weather parameters such as temperature, rainfall, relative humidity, wind and cloud cover. The forecasts will be disseminated through the ministries’ digital platforms, including the Mausamgram of IMD and e-GramSwaraj and Meri Panchayat app of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj.

The Mausamgram is an initiative aiming for ‘Har Har Mausam Har Ghar Mausam’ (weather information at each household at any time).

Continue reading India Meteorological Department launches village-level weather forecasts at Meteorological Technology International.