ENG-2019 — Page 301

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The Environment

Weather Forecasting and Information Services

The Observatory publicises weather information through the media, mobile application MyObservatory, Observatory website, Windows desktop application Weather Wizard, social media and Dial-a-Weather telephone service. It produces regular weather television programmes and an educational series, Cool Met Stuff, for free for Hong Kong's major TV networks and other media. Through social media, the Observatory communicates with and engages the public, attracting around 180,000 and 23,000 followers for its Facebook and Instagram accounts respectively as at end-2019. It revamped the design of its website in 2019 to better support mobile users and improve user experience. The online information services collectively drew a record high of about 187 billion page views in the year.

The Observatory issues weather forecasts and warnings, and offers professional advice to government departments and the aviation, shipping, engineering and other sectors. It provides aviation weather services to the airport and the Hong Kong Flight Information Region. MyFlightWx, a mobile application developed by the Observatory to offer flight crew the latest inflight weather information electronically, was put into operation by two local airlines in 2019. The Observatory issues forecasts of wind, weather, waves and swells for the marine community and container terminals. Warnings are disseminated when tropical cyclones cause storm surges. In an ongoing collaboration with the Government Flying Service, a meteorological dropsonde system collects meteorological profile data over the South China Sea when conditions allow, to strengthen the analysis and forecasting of tropical cyclones. During the year, the Observatory also deployed drifting buoys in the South China Sea and western North Pacific, and launched a new MyOceanWx Automatic Sea State Forecast webpage giving detailed four-day forecasts. of the wave and swell conditions over the South China Sea, western Pacific Ocean and

Indian Ocean.

The Observatory's achievements in nowcasting are widely recognised. The nowcasting system developed in-house, named Short-range Warning of Intense Rainstorms in Localised Systems (Swirls), won the Smart Business Grand Award and the Smart Business (Solution for Business and Public Sector Enterprise) Gold Award at the Hong Kong ICT Awards in April, and two awards in the 'Public Sector and Government category Government and Citizen Services' and 'Technology category Artificial Intelligence' at the Asia Pacific Information and Communications Technology Alliance Awards in November. Swirls provides effective short-term forecasts of rainfall and lightning, supporting the Observatory's rainstorm forecasting and warning services.

Climate Services and Studies

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The Observatory provides climatological information and predictions, including updates of phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña, an annual outlook on rainfall and the number of tropical cyclones affecting Hong Kong, and forecasts of seasonal temperature and rainfall. Climate information is offered to government departments and stakeholders involved in areas. such as disaster prevention and risk reduction, public health, water resources, urban planning and energy. The Observatory also conducts research on past trends and future projections of temperature, rainfall, sea level and extreme weather in Hong Kong, based on the latest assessment of global warming by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and

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