NOAA Climate Prediction Center's global meteorological data dissemination in support of the US Agency for International Development

Due to an increased awareness of international weather and climate related hazards, members of the humanitarian community as well as local and regional governmental institutions demand an increased knowledge of weather related phenomenon for decision making purposes. A new suite of graphical meteorological products, generated at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center (CPC) within its US Agency for International Development (USAID) funded project, provides a subset of this data to satisfy its basic information requirements. The original USAID project at the CPC focused entirely on a portion of the African continent south of the Sahara Desert, and was tasked with providing weather and climate related information to support food security concerns. While the primary objective has remained largely unchanged during the past decade, the geographical areas of coverage have greatly expanded and now cover a large portion of the globe. To maintain a position of constant awareness with respect to international weather monitoring, the new suite of global meteorological products produced by the NOAA CPC attempts to provide this information at one centralized location, for use by internal staff and external sources alike. Strictly web-based, the suite of products was created in such a manner to balance information requirements with Internet connectivity so that international users may access the data in a timely fashion, as needed. Thus the data is presented such that scientists within NOAA may utilize its contents to monitor global meteorological conditions on a routine basis, while also serving as an immediate source of weather information to the humanitarian community should a disaster occur. Products currently contained within the project include precipitation and anomalies, short to medium term model forecasts, satellite information, and links to existing, detailed NOAA CPC data. Additional, quality controlled data will be added as required.