Improving the weather and early-warning information dissemination - FMI open source mobile weather application

The expert services of the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) has been working over fifty years internationally in improving of the services provided by the different national hydro-meteorological services (NHMS’s) worldwide. The cornerstones of the cooperation with different institutes have been formed around improved disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change. So far, the assistance and transfer of know-how has reached more than 100 countries worldwide, mainly concentrating on the developing countries. The main objective of the projects has been to improve the quality, dissemination and effectiveness of the hydro-meteorological forecasts and warning services for the societies to first decrease number of fatalities related to natural disasters and to decrease the economical losses related to the same events.

 

One of the most tangible results of the FMI projects in improving the service delivery of the NHMS’s in developing countries has been the international installations of the FMI-built weather forecast and early warning production system “SmartMet”. The license fee-free and partly open-source software is already installed in some 30 countries world-wide, and the number is constantly increasing. The SmartMet system has the capabilities to create and disseminate weather and early-warning products to multiple end-users and platforms such as newspapers or the Internet. To tackle the challenge of reaching the last mile and to further improve the dissemination of weather and early-warning information FMI has developed a universal mobile weather and early warning application. The application works everywhere, where SmartMet system is installed, and it is integrated seamlessly into the local SmartMet system. This means it also utilizes and displays local data and early-warnings. The SmartMet mobile phone application is based on the FMI’s own mobile application in Finland and therefore it will be constantly developed and updated. This improves the sustainability of the system and application also internationally. The application will be published for iOS and Android operating systems.