Intensive testbed: Daily update, 30 January 2025

The WISER EWSA team onsite in Zambia as part of the intesive testbed divided their efforts with the majority of the technical team, comprising forecasters and meteorologists, working with the Zambia Meteorological Department (ZMD), and the community engagement specialists, selected forecasters, and community observers visiting Chinika Secondary School in Kanyama.

The technical programme started with reminders to the team of the overall strategy of WISER EWSA and the testbed’s context. Also highlighted were the importance of international collaboration for advancing both science and applications; the adoption of new technologies for improving forecasts and warnings in southern Africa, and the crucial role of weather information and community co-production in adapting to a changing climate.

The team produced the first synoptic forecasts and nowcasts – sent every two hours. The morning’s forecasts predicted some heavy rainfall for Kanyama. While the team at ZMD experienced two brief but heavy showers during the morning, the Kanyama community observers reported that they experienced only light rain. This led to a discussion about how spatially accurate a nowcast can be based on the available products and the nature of the convective rainfall. The technical team concluded that the impacts of a given amount of rainfall will be felt differently and perhaps this should be considered more so than the geographical difference in the products cross-city, which is inherently fast-changing and uncertain.

Nowcasts were sent every two hours during the day.

At Chinika Secondary School, the community engagement team met with senior geography learners and their teacher. The team met these learners on a previous visit in August 2024 and was impressed with their articulation of the weather-related challenges experienced in their area and their enthusiasm to find solutions for these.

The learners made the best of the opportunity to ask questions regarding the weather and why weather forecasts sometimes do not “come true”. They also shared how severe weather impacts them.

Two of the community observers who accompanied the team explained their role in sharing weather-related information in their communities as well as their contribution of on-the-ground feedback to the technical team regarding the veracity of nowcasts. The learners were keen to join the WhatsApp group to receive nowcasts and to be able to give feedback. They were also clear about the role they could play in sharing weather-related information with their families, the elderly and people with disabilities.

The session ended with the learners giving input into an educational resource planned by WISER EWSA for placement in classrooms. They suggested focus areas and shared their views on the visual appearance of the poster.