Environment

Airline joins weather programme

(August 07, 2014)

Hong Kong Observatory and Dragonair have joined forces to collect more automatic meteorological data from commercial aircraft to boost the accuracy of weather forecasts.
 
The project is part of the World Meteorological Organisation Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay programme, to enhance the global coverage of weather observations and the reliability of forecasts.
 
The programme was implemented in Hong Kong in 2004 and Dragonair joined last month, expanding its coverage, especially over ocean regions, the observatory said.
 
In the past decade, aircraft joining the programme have provided data on wind speed and direction, and temperature, collected during flight. The information helps forecasters analyse weather situations more precisely.