The insular Cabildo has incorporated a new meteorological information tool through a web platform, with the ability to receive real-time data. The Tenerife Weather Viewer will improve civil protection actions on the island and enable quick response to emergencies such as forest fires, including the virulent one that occurred last summer, which reached its six-month mark yesterday – starting on August 15, 2023, in the bordering mountains between Arafo and Candelaria. Phase 1 of this project involves an investment exceeding 118,000 euros, and the expectation is to award it in the coming weeks.
The President of the insular Corporation, Rosa Dávila, states that the objective of this platform is to have real-time meteorological information with the most comprehensive level of detail possible. She adds, “This will allow us to improve civil protection in the face of any emergency situation affecting the island.”
Dávila explains that the Tenerife Weather Viewer will serve as a support tool for monitoring weather conditions during the development of civil protection operations, adverse weather situations, and emergencies. It will also provide a valid tool for decision-making regarding phenomena such as heavy rainfall or strong gusts of wind.
Furthermore, its utility in monitoring climatic variables for natural or anthropic risks, arising from human activity, such as in the specific case of forest fires, should be highlighted.
Open Usage
Due to its potential usefulness for the general public, farmers, and individuals involved in the environment, as well as for leisure activities, active tourism, or beach tourism, open usage of the weather viewer is also being considered.
Provision
For the proper provision of services, the design and implementation of the new platform should meet specific objectives, such as having an innovative tool that combines all available meteorological information in Tenerife in real time. It should also serve as a support for better emergency management and implement tools for geographical analysis, consultation, and visualization of information across the island territory.
Consultation
Similarly, the Tenerife Weather Viewer must provide various users, from professionals in their respective fields to the general public, with the ability to access real-time meteorological information. It should also establish a database for analysis and application in different types of specific work and studies carried out by different areas under the Cabildo de Tenerife. To achieve these objectives, the construction of a web platform capable of providing real-time meteorological information from the island should include three major progressive processes: capture, storage, and visualization.
Capture of meteorological information from different observation networks installed in Tenerife to measure and record variables such as temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind, and solar radiation.
Storage and processing of information for data publication in a dropdown menu interface area. It will allow the generation of various thematic maps in real time for considered climatic variables, as well as analytical maps of meteorological parameters – maximum, minimum, mean, cumulative, fluctuations, gradients, and trends – in addition to related or derived products such as cloud cover, reference evapotranspiration, or forest fire meteorological hazard indices.
Visualization of all captured and generated information for monitoring meteorological variables and products. The platform’s viewer will use predetermined cartographic data as a base to display various fundamentals and the locations of stations and points of interest. In this regard, one key aspect of this system will be the construction of a high-resolution grid (high-performance computers) of 100 meters by 100 meters. Tenerife will soon have a key instrument for predicting adverse meteorological phenomena or responding rapidly to emergencies – the eye that watches the weather.
Secondary Set of Objectives
In anticipation of future expansions and the addition of new functionalities to the preliminary version of the Tenerife Weather Viewer envisioned in the first phase, a secondary set of objectives is being considered. These will inspire the tool’s development and include scalability and portability of the web platform, as well as adaptive design regarding the various data that will be available in the future, significantly improving the present ones.
These include meteorological data from other measurement networks and observation instruments and the development for the subsequent inclusion of new utilities in the platform, foreseeing the future availability of other daily meteorological prediction services, official warning notifications, and development based on technical standards to allow adaptation to mobile and tablet devices.
There is even the possibility of implementing future versions of the IT platform that controls server processing functionalities and data storage devices.
