AMeDAS, The Weather Forecasting System

               In Japan, the citizens commonly run their activity based on the weather forecast. It's because, Japan is well known with the precise weather forecast and all the citizen of Japan are believe in it. So that the weather forecast, including the system and the device, are very important to all the Japanese people. The Automated Meteorological Data Acquisition System (AMeDAS) is a collection of Automatic Weather Stations (AWSs) run by JMA (Japan Meteorological Agency) is the device for automatic observation weather aspects to support realtime monitoring of weather conditions with high temporal and spatial resolution. An AMeDAS observing station measuring precipitation, wind direction/speed, temperature and sunshine duration (with snow cover meter). JMA began operating the AMeDAS system, which now currently spreaded all around Japan at average intervals of 17 km nationwide, on 1st November 1974.

AMeDAS station

               Around 840 stations are installed to observe wind direction/speed and sunshine duration in addition to precipitation, and snow depth is observed at about 320 manned and unmanned stations in snowy districts. In total, there are over 1300 stations are working throughout Japan. These hourly data from all the stations are acquired to the AMeDAS center in Tokyo. Together with other observation data, such as meteorological satellite and radar, AMeDAS data is used to support tailored forecast and warning to mitigate meteorological disasters. AMeDAS data play an important role in reducing the risk of weather related disasters. And archived historical data and statistics are meet the basic information for wide area of human activities such as decision making, industrial production planning and farming schedule.

  

               To gain the information about AMeDAS, especially for the foreigner that didn’t understand Japanese are quite easy and much enough. The website like http://www.jma.go.jp/, as the official website of Japan Meteorological Agency, provide information like the overview of AMeDAS, the detailed picture of AMeDAS station device (as shown above), the full list of the observation sites, observation element of the AMeDAS complete with the descrtiption and the unit, examples of AMeDAS data and how to read it, and AMeDAS observation network all in english. Another website like http://data.sokki.jmbsc.or.jp/ also add the other information about the difference of hourly data and daily data gained from AMeDAS. The common website like http://en.wikipedia.org/ even have the page explained the short overview about AMeDAS that enough for the foreigner that is want to know about AMeDAS.

AMeDAS data showing sample

               For gain the weather forecast information straight from AMeDAS  by JMA, i also try to download the weather forecast application in smartphone from appstore (by searching with the ‘amedas’ keyword). The application can be downloaded for free, but for the foreigner the application it quite too confusing because it is in Japanese. The map for the weather forecast can be read, but the explanation and the other this are all in Japanese. So it’s better to install another weather forecast application that run in English and more simple and easy to understand. 

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The weather forecast application from AMeDAS data by JMA

               Different with Japan, the Indonesian forecasting system is not too important for the daily basis. Because sometimes it’s not precise, so it’s don’t work if we decide our kind of activity for that day based on the weather forecast. The system of Indonesian forecasting are based on current condition of the weather aspect for the short term forecast, and based on statistic by seeing the past data from decades of weather for the long term weather forecast. Indonesia also using the remote sensing method by seeing the weight line of ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) and SPCZ (South Pacific Convergence Zone) for the rain density forecast.

Source:

http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/Activities/amedas/amedas.html

http://data.sokki.jmbsc.or.jp/cdrom/monthly_report_jma/documents/amedas_e.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Meteorological_Data_Acquisition_System
http://www.jma.go.jp/en/yoho/214.html (image)

(Submitted for: Student Research in Spesific Field Course task at Tokyo University of Agriculture & Technology by the title "AMEDAS (Automated Surface Meteorological Data Acquisition System As A Weather Forecasting System in Japan")