WILL EAST AFRICA TURN TO AI FOR WEATHER FORECASTS?

WILL EAST AFRICA TURN TO AI FOR WEATHER FORECASTS?

Unreliable weather forecasts may now force the African countries to opt for artificial intelligence (AI).

This follows a recent shipment of a device to Uganda from the US where it has successfully predicted weather better than before.

Atmo AI will later this year be swamped with a grander invention that its owners believe will make it the iPhone of global meteorology. “Every nation that’s not a global superpower will need a cheaper device like this”, said Alexander Levy, Atmo’s co-founder.

He said this was an attempt to improve weather forecasting for poor countries “without the pricey supercomputers and data centres”.

AI can analyze past weather patterns to predict future events “much more efficiently and accurately” than the current technology.

Mr Levy, quoted by Bloomberg website on Green Technology, insisted that countries -poor and rich alike - need reliable weather forecasts.

He added that through successful testing, Atmo would be sending a superior version of the device to Uganda for weather prediction.

“It (the gadget) became an eye opener for us,” the Uganda National Meteorological Authority (UMA) acting executive director David Elweru, said.

Uganda had been subjected to landslides, floods, sporadic droughts and locust attacks which devastated farms. Many Uganda neighbours and African nations facing such ravages lacked the most modern tools to plan for a changing climate.

The CEO of the California-based Atmo insists that artificial intelligence (AI) programmes were the answer to the drawback. Mr Levy cautioned that it was not proper for countries to act or react only after weather-related disasters have happened.

“By doing so, we are dooming people to disaster and suffering,” he said, noting that only few weather authorities in Africa have embraced AI.

The Uganda weather body, UNMA has signed a multi-year deal with Atmo for the application of AI technology in weather prediction.

“It’s a novel approach. We picked the start-up because its device was way,way cheaper,” said Stephen Kaboyo, an investment official. Uganda currently has more than 100 weather stations and three forecasting radars across the country.

The firm is planning to extend its coverage to the entire East African Community (EAC) region and is already in talks with Kenya.

Unreliable weather prediction in the region has largely been blamed on the use of obsolete technology to collect data.

There are also cases of failure to replace old manual systems for weather reporting with modern digital equipment.

Tanzania recently signed an agreement with the American firm Enterprise Electronics Corporation (EEC) for the purchase of two state-of-the-art satellite weather radars.

The two radars, costing $ 4.9million (about Sh. 11.4billion), will be installed in Dodoma and Arusha, bringing to seven the number of radars operating in the country.