The Rwanda Meteorology Agency (Meteo Rwanda) has installed four new automatic weather stations as part of efforts to expand its observation network and improve climate and weather forecasting. The new stations have been installed in Kigali (Gitega station), Kamonyi (Gacurabwenge station), Gakenke (Rushashi station), and Rwamagana (Rwamagana station). The weather stations were acquired with support from the Rwanda Green Fund (FONERWA). Three of the automatic weather stations have sensors for recording and measuring nine parameters including: wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, air temperature, solar radiation, air pressure, soil humidity, soil temperature and rainfall. The Gitega station has two additional sensors to measure sunshine duration and evaporation. Francois Nsengiyumva, the Acting Division Manager of Technology and Information Support Services, said the newly acquired stations will help to fill the data gaps in districts that previously had no automatic weather stations. “In total, we had four districts without automatic weather stations. Today, we remain with only one, which shall be covered in near future after the installation of 20 more weather stations which are being procured under the Rural Sector Support Project, an initiative we are implementing with the Ministry of Agriculture,” said Francois. John Ntaganda Semafara, Director General of Meteo Rwanda, said that the installation of additional automatic weather stations will provide a better understanding of the weather conditions in micro-climatic zones and enhance the accuracy of climatological data. This is crucial as Rwanda embarks on the development of agricultural crop insurance for farmers. The expanded observation network will also help Meteo Rwanda provide more useful information to the growing number of people and institutions using climatological data. “We are seeing an increase in the users of climate data. We are confident that the expanded observation network will allow us to reach our target of serving our users with more reliable data and improve our weather forecast accuracy,” said Didace Musoni, Division Manager of Data Observation, Quality Control and Processing at Meteo Rwanda. Currently, Meteo Rwanda has a network of 308 weather stations. In the near future, this number will increase to 328 after the installation of ten additional automatic weather stations and ten more semi-automatic weather stations, which shall be upgraded to full automatic stations over the next year. Source - http://rwandaeye.com