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The Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) today (March 18) announced that a Russian-language version of the World Weather Information Service (WWIS) website (wwis.meteoinfo.ru/) was launched by the HKO, in collaboration with the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometerology and Environmental Monitoring under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). WWIS pools the latest official weather forecasts of over 1,300 cities around the world issued by their National Meteorological and Hydrometeorological Services (NMHSs). The new website allows Russian-speaking communities to view the latest weather information in their own language. With the launch of the Russian version, WWIS is now serving the international public in nine different languages: English, Chinese, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Russian.
The Director of the Hong Kong Observatory, Dr Lee Boon-ying, said, "We are privileged to have the opportunity to collaborate with the meteorological authority of the Russian Federation in this endeavour. It is exciting that more countries are joining this meaningful WMO project to better serve the public around the world. As travel becomes rather common these days, people will find the service very useful when it comes to accessing weather information of the cities they plan to visit, and more importantly, in their own languages."
The Consul General of the Russian Federation in Hong Kong, Mr Sergey N Gritsay, congratulated HKO and the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring for jointly bringing the Russian-language version of the WWIS website into operation. He said, "This website in Russian is an excellent example of how Russian-Hong Kong co-operation can contribute positively to the exchange of weather information on a common platform and to the well-being of people throughout the world."
In 2000, WMO decided to establish an official website on world weather and entrusted HKO, which had proposed it, to develop and operate this website. The WWIS website (worldweather.wmo.int) is the world's first and only website for official city forecasts issued by the respective national weather forecasters. WWIS was declared fully operational by the WMO in 2005. In 2008, the WWIS website won the prestigious Stockholm Challenge Award in the Environment Category.
Presently, 127 WMO members supply official weather forecasts for 1,347 cities to WWIS. The website also contains climatological data for the cities, which is useful for travel planning. Users can also visit the websites of individual NMHSs to find out more about the weather in areas of interest. The cumulative total number of page visits to WWIS reached 850 million in 2010.
To visit the Russian version of the WWIS website, users can go directly via the link wwis.meteoinfo.ru/ or via WWIS English website (worldweather.wmo.int/) and click "Pycckuu".
Ends/Friday, March 18, 2011
Issued at HKT 12:53
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