CONTINUOUS METEOROLOGICAL TRAINING IN SOUTHERN AFRICA AND THE
USE OF VISIT VIEW.
Winifred Jordaan
South African Weather Service
Private Bag, X097, Pretoria, 0001, South Africa
The South African Weather Service appoints scientific personnel as weather observers or
meteorologists (researchers, climatologists or forecasters) depending on the training received.
Weather Observers:
Weather Observers are trained by Weather Service Personnel. Bursaries are allocated to
matriculants/ grade 12 that have passed their mathematics and physical sciences. They are then
trained for one year in all aspects of weather observations as needed by the South African
Weather Service.
These personnel are located in 18 office right through South Africa (see Figure 1). We are in a
process of refreshing their meteorological knowledge and to bring them the latest information on
observation. The only way to give a lecture to all the offices simultaneously and to save time is
to use visit view.
All OBS STATIONS IN
South Africa
ZIMBABWE
BOTSWANA
MOZAMBIQUE
Thohoyandou
NAMIBIA
Polokwane
Nelspruit
Irene
NORTH WEST
PROVINCEMafeking
Mafeking
Upington
Kimberly
FREE STATE
Pretoria
OR Tambo
Ermelo
Bethlehem
Bloemfontein
Springbok
Durban
Durban
DeAar
Aar
De
Calvinia
Mthatha
Cape Town
Port Elizabeth
George
PURPLE
East
London
TAN
≥ 2000m
1500 – 2000m
≥ 6600ft
4950 – 6600ft
BROWN 1000 – 1500m
3300 – 4950ft
YELLOW 500 – 1000m
1650 – 3300ft
GREEN
0 – 500m
0 – 1650ft
Figure 1: All weather observing station in South Africa. The red dots are the forecasting offices.
Meteorologists:
A post graduate qualification is a requirement for employment as a meteorologist within the
South African Weather Service and to address these needs, training is provided to students in
collaboration with various Universities within South Africa (Cape Town, Wits and Pretoria
universities) This is done on a partnership basis because of the low student numbers required by
the industry. See Figure 2 for the Training outline in South Africa.
The specialties that are addressed are Weather Forecasting, Climatology and Research fields like
Numerical Weather Prediction, Seasonal Modeling and Physical Meteorology.
As most of these specialties have a large practical aspect, most of the courses are given through
the University of Pretoria with the majority of the lecturers being employed by the South African
Weather Service itself.
After graduation these personnel is posted to their positions. Most of the personnel is in Pretoria,
but there are big forecasting offices in OR Tambo International airport, Bloemfontein, Port
Elizabeth, Durban and Cape Town. Visit View is installed at all these offices and they can
register individually for the courses (international) as well. This will encourage them to register
for the EUMETSAT visit view international courses as well. These personnel are also
encouraged to develop their own visit view presentation for the other stations.
CAREER AT THE SOUTH AFRICAN
WEATHER SERVICE
HONOURS IN METEOROLOGY
4 year study after school
HONOURS IN EARTH AND
ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE
SIX-MONTH BSC (HONS) BRIDGING
COURSE (INTRODUCTION TO
METEOROLOGY)
BSC. GENERAL
NATIONAL CERTIFICATE
IN WEATHER
OBSERVATION – NQF 5
BSC. IN METEOROLOGY
OR EARTH AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE
Matriculants who have a minimum of a C
symbol in: Mathematics, Physical Science
Figure 2: The training careers in the South African Weather Service
Neighboring countries:
An international training session was held in South Africa in March 2008 and was sponsored by
EUMETSAT. Representatives from Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland and
Mozambique as well as some of SAWS forecasters attended. The first three days training on visit
view was given and on the last two days training on the use of Moodle was given. On the
Wednesday a successful lecture were given to Niamey and Niamey gave a successful lecture to
South Africa. All representatives were given the software on CD’s and hard drives. Namibia was
successful to install the software. Most of the others stated they had port problems. If
communications can be established, weather discussions can become a reality between the
neighbours.
.