
The WWIS website, developed and maintained by HKO on behalf of the WMO, provides authoritative and reliable weather information from NMHSs around the world. The website was revamped to enhance user experience. Its new interface incorporates the latest web technologies, including geographical information system (GIS), to provide a number of innovative user-friendly features. These include a user-customized homepage and list of favourite cities as well as a tool for sharing weather forecasts, news from WMO, etc. with friends. Furthermore, its adaptive design provides cellular phone browsers with a smoother user experience.
The Data Collection or Production Centres, a component of WWIS and the WMO Information System (WIS), provides online search and access to official WWIS weather forecasts and climatological information for cities around the world. It also offers a subscription to weather information encoded in XML format to facilitate further data processing. It provides the necessary weather information metadata to enable searching through the Global Information System Centres’ (GISC) Discovery, Access and Retrieval (DAR) services.
From the DCPC portal, users can search for the weather forecast and climatological information products currently available under WWIS. They can request direct access to the most recent issues of the products or set up a subscription to get the products delivered once they arrive at the DCPC. The portal is open to all participating NMHSs of the WWIS programme. For more details, contact Mr. CHAN Sai-tick, Forecast Systems Division, Hong Kong Observatory at: dcpc@hko.gov.hk.