The Guido Schenzl Award, the Pro Meteorological Commemorative Plaque, the Dezső Dévényi Commemorative Medal for Numerical Prognosis and several Ministerial letters of commendation were presented to mark World Meteorological Day on 23 March.

In his speech at the event, the Ministry of Agriculture’s Minister of State for Environmental Affairs, Agricultural Development and Hungaricums Zsolt V. Németh said: This year, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has set as its goal a better understanding and greater public awareness of clouds.

“Thousand-faced clouds have been a subject of scientific thinking for millennia”, and the findings of cloud physics Cleary show how great a role clouds play the planet’s self-regulation, he added. The Minister of State thanked the staff of the National Meteorological Service (OMSZ) for striving to forecast weather as precisely as possible and for making people’s lives easier as a result.

At the event, President of the National Meteorological Service Kornélia Radics spoke about the fact that clouds are vital to forecasting weather conditions, modelling climate change and estimating available water stocks. She reported on the fact that to mark World Meteorological Day the OMSZ had created an internet version of the International Cloud Atlas first published in the 19th century, the forecasts on the Service’s website had been renewed, and the organisation had published a book on clouds that provides simple and easily understandable answers to cloud-related questions. The OMSZ President also spoke about the fact that the first regular instrumental meteorological measurements in Hungary began three hundred years ago in Sopron on 1 July 1717. There are currently over 750 measuring stations countrywide that provide 45 million pieces of data-a-year on weather conditions, she added.

At the event organised to mark World Meteorological Day, the Guido Schenzl Award, the Pro Meteorological Commemorative Plaque, the Dezső Dévényi Commemorative Medal for Numerical Prognosis and several Ministerial letters of commendation were presented by the Minister of State. Awards were also presented to voluntary weather observers who have been enthusiastically making precise observations for many years, and an award for “Innovation in meteorology” was also presented.

World Meteorological Day has been held since 1960 to commemorate the coming into force of the World Meteorological Organisation’s founding document on 23 march 1950. The WMO is part of the United Nations, in which over 180 member states are represented at government level. The Organisation’s goal is to facilitate the application of meteorology in the widest possible range of areas, to harmonised research by member states and to facilitate metrological training.

(MTI/Ministry of Agriculture)