"Outreach & Communication Award 2008" for Europe-wide severe weather warning system from the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, Austria (ZAMG).
The Austrian Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) has developed a Europe-wide severe weather warning system, meteoalarm , which was recently awarded the "Outreach & Communication Award 2008" in Amsterdam.
The warning system collates meteorological data from 30 European countries and offers warnings about eventual weather conditions faster than was previously possible. Over the next few weeks, ten further countries will be incorporated into the system. This will mean that weather conditions in Eastern Europe can also be identified more precisely.
Thanks to cooperation between European meteorological institutes, it will be possible to identify hurricanes, gales, flooding, fog, storms, heat and cold much earlier and also to communicate the conditions in a more targeted way. The meteoalarm platform has become an early-recognition tool for the economy and traffic, thanks to the precise presentation of the weather conditions forecast. Travellers also use the platform to assist short-term holiday plans. Further fields of application include the agriculture industry and early securing of sites at risk.