Weather forecast research for Beijing Olympics in progress (photo attached)

Updated：2007-06-27

(BEIJING, June 27) -- Beijing's meteorological agency has made wide research on new technologies to ensure the success of the 2008 Olympic Games, according to its vice director Wang Jianjie.

The research covers such areas as detailed forecast technologies for the competition venues; nowcasting of the disastrous weather; rational distribution of middle-range monitoring networks; scientific tests of rain dispersal and the assessment of the social-economic impact of meteorological services, she told a press conference at the Beijing Olympic Media Center on Wednesday.

She said the middle-range monitoring networks have been set up in Beijing and Qingdao, a co-host city. "Before we started the research program, we did not have such networks," she added.

Scene of the press conference

The Beijing Meteorological Bureau has also set up automatic stations at the Olympic venues to monitor weather changes.

As a result, Beijing is now able to nowcast strong convection currents such as rainstorms or strong winds whose forecast in the past was rather "subjective," she said.

During the Olympic Games, forecast for the next three hours will be provided for every competition venue within the Fifth Ring Road in a time frame of 72 hours, including air temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, and wind data. This year's test events for the Olympics will follow the planned pattern.

The task requests a high speed computer system which operates at 10 mega bits against the half mega bits Beijing's computer used to operate before, according to the bureau's vice chief engineer Wang Yubin.

Touching on international cooperation in the weather forecast field as well as the administrative aspect of the services for the Olympic Games at large, the vice director said Beijing has established cooperation programs with Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Japan and the United States. The World Meteorological Organization is also giving assistance in this area. Beijing has paid due attention to learning from the previous Games, with four experts observing the meteorological services for the 2004 Olympics.