Plan for Improving Observations Around Lake Victoria that Support Numerical Weather Predictions, Climate Services and Adaptation

This plan is the outcome of a workshop Improving the value chain from observations to climate services to support climate policy, adaptation and mitigation in East Africa held in Entebbe, Uganda on 31 October to 2 November 2018. In general, across the five countries in the region (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda) insufficient stations are reporting as needed by NWP and climate analysis (i.e. hourly) and will also not be sufficient to meet the proposed mandatory requirements of GBON. There are several reasons for this: 1. Many stations were reported to the workshop which are not reporting to WMO. Thus, the list of stations in OSCAR/Surface is incomplete. Stations, whose existence is not reported, and whose data is not exchanged, are practically useless. 2. Several countries reported lack of calibration capacity as an issue limiting operations and accuracy. 3. There were many stations that were either not operational or that are not operating as intended when they were installed. In general, there was a lack of planning and resources to ensure network sustainability.