WMO assistance to be sought for early warning of severe weather

The government has decided to obtain technical assistance from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to improve forecasts and early warning of severe weather, floods and landslides in the country, Cabinet Spokesman and Mass Media Minister Dr. Bandula Gunawardhana said.

He was speaking at the weekly Cabinet media briefing held yesterday at the Government Information Department.Climate Resilience Multi-Phase Programmatic Approach is funded by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank and is planned to be implemented over nine years under three phases.

The first component of the five-component programme is designed to improve skills, technology and infrastructure of the relevant institutions to enable accurate forecasting and pre-assessment of weather conditions. By doing so, it is expected that it will be possible to accurately predict high-risk weather and climate conditions very quickly and reduce the estimated cost of 313 million US dollars annually spent by the government on post-disaster management activities.

Accordingly the Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal presented by the Irrigation Minister to obtain the services of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), an international organisation with extensive experience in the field of meteorology and hydrology and the technical ability to improve emergency warning systems.

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