'Strengthening early warning systems will mitigate climate change effects'

__________________

As climate-driven disasters become more frequent and intense worldwide, meteorology experts are sounding the alarm over the urgent need to invest and strengthen the Early Warning Systems (EWS) to save lives and property.

Water and environment ministry commissioner for meteorology, Dr Bob Alex Ogwang, says strengthening early warning infrastructure is the most immediate and cost-effective step the Government can take to shield and prepare communities from climate shocks such as floods, droughts and storms.

“We just need to strengthen early warning systems and disseminate information in real time to ensure Ugandans get it to plan better,” Ogwang said in an interview with New Vision.

Across the globe, extreme weather events are becoming harder to predict using outdated systems. Ogwang is experiencing increased rainfall intensity, sometimes receiving a month’s worth of rain in less than 24 hours.

He said similar phenomena recently caused devastating flash floods in the United States and other regions, destroying property and killing people.

“You have seen floods, drought occurrences. They used not to be like we are experiencing now,” Ogwang noted.

“In Kampala, we had a serious case where it rained for a very short period of time but heavily, resulting in flooding. We might have a case where the rainfall amount we are supposed to receive in a month, you get it in two 24hrs,” he explained.

EWS is the first line of climate defence

Early warning systems, according to Ogwang, encompass four key capacities: Monitoring, forecasting, communicating, and responding.

He said these tools provide governments and communities with timely and actionable information ahead of climate hazards.

“Weather is predictable. If you have weather ladders functioning, you are able to see how the systems are moving, and we give alerts to people,” he noted.

However, Ogwang also noted that a lack of trained meteorologists at the local level remains a critical gap.

He said that currently, Uganda relies on district-level natural resource officers to relay forecast information at the Local Government level, but their ability to interpret and explain meteorological data is limited.

“The challenge is that they can’t answer some questions from the communities because they are not meteorological specialists,” he said.

International partnerships bolster Uganda’s capabilities

To address these capacity gaps, Uganda has partnered with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the Finnish Meteorological Institute under the Climate Risk Early Warning Systems (CREWS) initiative to train their officers.

A Finnish technical team is expected in Uganda this year to train local engineers on the maintenance of essential forecasting equipment, especially the sophisticated “weather ladders.”

“We have a ladder from Finland, from a company called Visalla, and since no university in Uganda teaches weather ladder meteorology or engineering, we deliberately negotiated for this training,” Ogwang explained.

Uganda currently operates three “weather ladders”, which systems detect severe weather conditions and track storm movement in real-time.

They are stationed in Entebbe (Kigungu) in Wakiso, Lira University, and Mwizi Hills in Rwampara.

Each ladder costs approximately sh12bn (around $3.2 million), and maintenance is very costly.

“It is expensive to maintain, and yet it is a requirement, particularly now that we are experiencing climate change. We have noticed from our studies how the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events are on the rise,” Ogwang said.

Additional innovations include the deployment of Low-Level Wind Alert Systems (LLWS) at Entebbe to assist pilots in detecting abrupt wind changes, which is a major aviation hazard.

Ogwang said they are also working to establish more automatic weather stations.

He said the current national coverage is at 71%, with the rest of the districts still relying on outdated manual systems.

Plans are also underway to establish an additional upper weather observation station with the support from WMO under the initiative called “Systematic Observation Financing Facility (SOFF).

The station, which is to be placed 300km from Entebbe, will complement the one at Entebbe International Airport to improve Uganda’s compliance with global aviation safety standards.

Each upper weather station releases high-altitude weather balloons twice daily, collecting critical data on temperature, humidity, and wind patterns for both local use and international aviation systems.

“It’s expensive, the balloon gadget alone costs $300, and we release it twice a day at 3pm and 3am. But it’s essential for global data sharing,” he explained.

Water ministry permanent secretary Dr Alfred Okot Okidi confirmed the Government’s commitment to scaling up EWS infrastructure.

“We are working on a comprehensive system using our meteorological forecasts and water resource modeling, coupled with an alert mechanism to cover the entire country,” he said.

He stressed that in the mid-term, the ministry also plans to deploy trained meteorological officers at regional offices to improve district-level responsiveness and help communities better manage climate-related risks such as floods, droughts, landslides, and fire hazards.

Experts warn that unless early warning systems are prioritised, the human and economic toll of climate disasters are likely to escalate.

“Early warning should mean being alive. EWS is the low-hanging fruit that anyone can pick and use to make the right choices,” Ogwang emphasized.