The Canarian Regional Government to implement its own weather observation network

The Ministry of Territorial Policy, Sustainability and Security, directed by Nieves Lady Barreto, has launched implementation of the Canary Islands’ Government’s own meteorological observation system to improve forecasts and make more localised predictions. The public company Grafcan will work with them to install a sensor network across all the islands, with a total budget of €600,000 to be completed within the next two years.

Grafcan will lead the project to act as the Office of  Climatological Study and will begin implementation of a data management system analysing, primarily, the networks of existing meteorological sensors, then, to identify precisely which are the most appropriate locations to distribute the sensors on each island.

In a first forecast, Grafcan has proposed the installation of a total of 27 sensors distributed throughout the islands. These are, fundamentally, meteorological and micro-radio stations whose installation will begin at the start of 2018 and will be completed in 2019.

The data provided by these sources will be completed with access to satellite information through the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) and the European Organization for the Exploration of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

“The improvement of our meteorological forecasting capacity is fundamental from the point of view of civil protection, but it also gives us the possibility of creating a historical data base and thus having a strategic tool for the adaptation and mitigation of the effects of climate change, “added the counselor.