Strengths and weaknesses of our NMHS - South Africa

Strengths and weaknesses of our NMHS - South Africa

by Innocent Mbokodo -
Number of replies: 0

Strengths
•South Africa has 22 inland regional offices which play a role in weather and climate science community outreach
•Verified social media accounts to keep the nation aware of any significant weather related events
•Timely seasonal forecast which are now also translated to indigenous languages
•Constant improvement on the archiving/cataloguing of notable historical extreme events
•Efforts in the development of an Integrated Climate driven multi hazard early warning system, which can assist with the following
1. Improved risk knowledge and risk awareness
2. Improved monitoring and forecasting of identified cli-mate risks and hazards
3. Wider dissemination of early warnings through various media platforms to user groups and vulnerable groups within the district municipalities
4. Effective response capabilities and levels of preparedness to anticipated climate risks and hazards.

Weaknesses

•Communication challenges
•Network challenges
•Loadshedding leading to loss of data
•Capacity challenges owing to the increasing volume of data requests – Many people are now ‘weather-smart’ and tend to be more interested
•No formal platform for provider-user interactions
•Lack of spares to keep our infrastructure running at their optimal capacity
•Lack of long term data for most parameters (except Temp and Rain), making it difficult to study their climatology and long term change