Members of the Korea Meteorological Administration’s Olympic support team pose at its launching ceremony in PyeongChang, the host city of the 2018 Winter Olympics, on Feb. 2, 2018. (Image: Yonhap)
SEOUL, Feb. 2 (Korea Bizwire) – The Korea Meteorological Administration and the organizers of this month’s PyeongChang Winter Olympics launched a weather forecast support team in the host city PyeongChang Friday, the weather agency said.
The 66-member team, which is composed of 36 meteorological experts and 30 weather observation volunteers, is tasked with providing precise weather forecasts and alerts for PyeongChang and other nearby Olympics venues until Feb. 26.
The team’s weather forecasters will be dispatched to the Olympics’ Main Operations Centre in PyeongChang and other Olympics venues for the Feb. 9-25 event to ensure the smooth facilitation of games and the safety of athletes and spectators.
Olympic weather forecasters will provide 24-hour weather forecasts every hour, short-range forecasts every three hours and medium-range forecasts twice a day on a real-time basis and attend meetings of athletes and judges to give detailed weather information.
The real-time forecasts will be available via the agency’s smart weather support system — http://pc2018.kma.go.kr — and its mobile system — http://m.pc2018.kma.go.kr.
To help ensure smooth traffic flows on roads leading to PyeongChang during the Olympics, the team will offer forecasts of rain, snow, fog and other risks, for the expressway linking Yeoju, east of Seoul, to Gangneung, the east coast city set to host Olympic ice events.
The team’s launch came after the weather agency concluded a deal in 2012 with the organizers to provide the Olympics with weather forecast services and trained 40 weather forecasters exclusively for the Winter Games, in cooperation with the U.S. weather forecast training institution, COMET, in 2014.
It has also established a world-class weather observation network by installing 107 weather observation devices of 10 kinds in a bid to give accurate weather forecasts for venues located in mountainous areas.
Choe Heung-jin, vice chief of the weather agency and the team’s head, said “We will make all efforts to provide fast and accurate weather information on every venue, which will lead to the success of the PyeongChang Olympics and the safe staging of the event.”
(Yonhap)
