Our partnership work to strengthen weather and climate services across Zambia, Mozambique, and South Africa has reached a major milestone with the successful completion of the WISER-EWSA project. A new short film (below) captures how tailored forecasts and nowcasts are already helping communities anticipate severe weather and protect lives and livelihoods.
Under the Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa (WISER) programme, managed by the Met Office for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and led by the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of Leeds, the Early Warnings for Southern Africa (EWSA) project has transformed how weather information is delivered and used. The initiative brought together national meteorological services (the National Institute of Meteorology, Mozambique; South African Weather Service; and the Zambia Meteorological Department) with community groups, researchers, and international partners—including the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH)—to co-produce novel, user-tailored early warning systems and communication protocols.
Over the past two years, the project ran the first ever severe weather forecast testbeds in southern Africa: Forecasters developed new nowcasting skills and issued locally relevant warnings throughout entire rainy seasons, using multiple communication channels—WhatsApp, radio, SMS, voice notes in local languages—to reach even the most vulnerable and requesting feedback for improvements. Communities actively shaped how forecasts are delivered, helping to build more trust, better preparedness, and growing interest in and demand for timely weather updates.
Project highlights include:
- New nowcasting capabilities embedded in Zambia, Mozambique, and South Africa’s meteorological services, supported by structured training and daily operational practice.
- Stronger partnerships with disaster management agencies and local governments.
- Hundreds of community observers, many from women’s and disability groups, now equipped to interpret and share weather information, increasing local resilience.
- Evidence that early warning services developed under WISER-EWSA bring benefits that exceed their costs many times over.
As the project concludes, the work doesn’t stop: national meteorological services have committed to sustaining and expanding nowcasting beyond the project’s lifespan, supported by new standard operating procedures and growing community networks. At UKCEH, we are happy to have contributed expertise and tools in community-centred early warning systems, working alongside diverse partners to help make weather services in southern Africa more inclusive, trusted, and sustainable.
