WIREDGOV

From spring 2011, the Met Office in partnership with the Royal Meteorological Society and supported by the Department of Education will launch - WOW- the Weather Observations Website for weather observers across the UK.

It is hoped that the website will encourage further growth in the UK's amateur weather observing community, and help educate children about the weather. It is hoped that this will become the UK's largest source of weather observations. At the same time, the growing world of social networking online makes it relatively easy for anyone to get involved and share their weather observations.

The purpose of the website is to provide a platform for the sharing of current weather observations. This will be regardless of where they come from, what detail of information or the frequency of reports.

Involvement can include submitting ad-hoc information such as 'it is snowing here', or uploading a photograph of the weather you have observed. It also means you can submit routinely taken data from manned or automatic weather stations of high standards.

Of course, weather patterns that affect the UK develop thousands of miles away, such as over the Atlantic Ocean and because of this our forecasts rely on a range of global observations. These include space satellites, ocean buoys, aircraft, shipping, weather balloons and those taken on the ground. All of this global data feeds into the Met Office to produce the warnings and forecasts that the UK relies upon.

However, once launched, it is hoped that users will then use this new website to explore the British weather, looking at how it varies from place to place, moves across the country and how your location can make a difference to the weather you see. Over time WOW will build up an historical record of weather observations for sites across the UK.

Register your interest in contributing to WOW