Meteorological data is of vital importance for assessing impacts of climate change in climatic sensitive sectors for developing adaptation measures and also for planning of development projects in any country. Many national weather services in the region are facing difficulties in maintaining proper data archiving systems due to lack of reliable and sustainable data archiving packages, which allows the users to store, arrange and analyze the data in user friendly manner.

To address these needs, a hands-on training workshop on CLIMSOFT meteorological data archiving package was conducted for the benefit of the officials of Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH) from 17-21 June 2013 in Yangon. Mr. Jayasinghearachchi, Deputy Director of Sri Lanka’s Meteorological Department, a recognized regional CLIMSOFT trainer, conducted the workshop. About 20 officials attended the workshop namely from DMH’s regional offices in Nay Pyi Taw and Mandalay, in addition to the officials from the record section at Yangon office.

Ms. Daw Ye Ye Nyein, Director of DMH (Lower Myanmar region) inaugurated the workshop and Dr. Senaka Basnayake, Department Head of CCCRM represented ADPC in the inaugural ceremony.

Ms. Daw Ye Ye Nyein, Director of DMH, highlighted the importance of this training workshop stating that, “we did not have a proper meteorological data arching system at DMH in the past and therefore, the effort of ADPC under the Norwegian funded project to enhance the capacity of DMH officials is very much appreciated”.
She also added, “we will try our best to implement the CLIMSOFT meteorological data archiving package at DMH. We may seek follow-up support from ADPC to make the effort sustainable”.

Dr. Senaka Basnayake, Head of ADPC’s Climate Change and Climate Risk Management reassured that ADPC will support the implementation process of CLIMSOFT at DMH.