Weather Service

a system that furnishes the population and various branches of the economy with weather forecasts and current weather information. Weather services exist in most countries, implemented by government hydrometeorological and meteorological services.

The first weather services were established in France and Great Britain in the 1850’s, and in Russia in the 1870’s. In the USSR, the weather service relies on weather information issued regularly by domestic meteorological and aerological stations and by radio and wire from abroad. The weather service also utilizes the observations of meteorological satellites, radar, and aircraft. This information is recorded on weather maps, which are used for making weather forecasts. Large forecasting stations make use of high-speed computers for this purpose.

Weather forecasts, information on the current state of the weather, and warnings of weather hazards are transmitted to organizations that require such information and are also made public by radio, television, and the press. The USSR’s central weather service agency is the Hydrometeorological Scientific Research Center of the USSR. In the Union and autonomous republics, krais, and oblasts, weather information is provided by regional hydrometeorological centers in Novosibirsk, Tashkent, and Khabarovsk and by weather bureaus, hydrometeorological bureaus, and observatories. There are also specialized weather service agencies at airports, seaports, and major reservoirs.

The weather service also provides the national economy with information on the current and projected state of agricultural crops and of rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and seas. In view of this extended scope of information provided, the more general term “forecasting service” is sometimes used.

In 1967, the Fifth Meteorological Congress of the World Meteorological Organization ratified a plan to improve the collection and transmission of meteorological information on a worldwide scale and to improve the application of such information for weather forecasting. This plan aims to expand international cooperation and to increase the efficiency of the national weather services.