The Gambia
Posted by Ryan
The Gambia is the smallest mainland country in Africa, and as such has a fairly simply defined climate. The nation follows the route of the Gambia River inland into Senegal, hence it's name. It is north of the Equator but within the Tropics and is subject to the seasonal motion of the ITCZ. The capital, Banjul, can go without rain for the winter, spring and most of the fall, only to have it rain non stop during the summer. It's a low lying nation as well, as it is in a river valley, and there is no relief from the tormenting heat, aside from the fact that humidity is not an issue during the winter months.
The Department of Water Resources "carries out meteorological functions", however their staff, as described by the UK Met Office consists of only 1 meteorologist and 5 meteorological officers, two of whom are out of the country and one is on sick leave. There are also 42 meteorological technicians, whatever that entails. Needless to say, the Gambians do not have a website.
Bhutan
Posted by Anthony
Bhutan is a small landlocked country in south-central Asia, sometimes called "Switzerland of Asia" due to it's landlocked and mountainous nature, bordered by India on it's southern and eastern sides and China to the North. The southern border is where the valley river plain of India starts and off in the northern half of the country are the famous Himalayas. While not as high as their Nepalese neighbors (that's right Everest, hog all the glory why don't you?), many peaks crack the 23,000 foot level, with Kula Kangri topping them out at a whopping 24,780 feet. Naturally, the climate in these extreme mountain ranges is one of nasty winter blizzards with perpetual snow cover, which is partly the source of the country's name, which translates to "Land of the Thunder Dragon". A bit further south in the country's midsection the climate changes over to a cool, temperate variety with average rainfall of roughly 40". The southern portion of the country sees a hot, humid climate with average temperatures often pushing into the 90s during the summer in the southern valleys. Given the monsoons that push into the region from June through September, some locations have reported annual rainfall of an incredible 200-300 inches! Certainly a nation of extremes given it's relatively small size of around 14,800 square miles, which is slightly larger than Maryland.
Bhutan's Meteorological and Hydrological services are headed by the Council for Renewable Natural Resources Research, but sadly doesn't appear to have an active website.
Palau
Posted by Ryan
Palau is one of the youngest nations in the world. It is an island cluster southeast of the Philippines. It gained it's independence from the United States in 1994, but continues to freely associate with the United States, relying on our fine country for military protection, among other things. The country is a tropical nation that sees rain all year, never truly escaping the ITCZ. The good news is that the country is too close to the equator to ever really be under the threat of any tropical storms or typhoons.The largest island, Babeldaob, is mountainous and sees more rain than the surrounding, mostly coral islands.
As the United States is entrusted with the protection of the island nation, the US also provides Palau with any weather information they may seek.
Republic of the Congo
Posted by Ryan
There are two Congos in our world today. One is the former Zaire, and the country we will highlight today is the one that has always been the Congo, the one that feature Brazzaville as it's national capital. If you are still confused, here's a map of the country. It's located right on the equator, so the Congo sees a typically consistent climate. It's hot, humid and very rainy all year long. Fortunately, much of the eastern part of the country is found at higher elevations, which allay some of the heat, but rarely much of the humidity or rain.
The Congo is a member of the World Meteorological Society thanks to their meteorology department, the Direction De La Meteorologie Nationale. Their website is is entirely in French and looks like it was probably designed in the late 90s. As such, I found it difficult to penetrate for our purposes.
UPDATE: I looked at a weather forecast. The most recent was from 2008. So I don't think the site is presently maintained.
Kuwait
Posted by Ryan
Our trip around the world takes us to Kuwait, a nation that might fly under the radar for most Americans were it not for the first Gulf War in 1991. It lies wedged between Iraq and Saudi Arabia at the northern end of the Persian Gulf. As one should expect in that part of the world, Kuwait is in the middle of a desert, and as such it suffers through a long, dusty and hot summer. Kuwait does lie far enough north that their winters can be a bit chilly thanks to the dry air that blows in from the northwest in the right environments, The get most of their rain in the winter thanks to the systems that can actually sneak into the area.
The Kuwait Meteorological Center is the source for Kuwaitis to get local forecasts from local forecasters. The site is definitely utilitarian. Many countries use their sites more as advertisement for their meteorologists and their operations, but you'll find none of that at the KMC. Instead, they have all the things you need. They have forecasts, satellite, radar and even a surface analysis. You don't often see these in a prominent position on a map anymore, and it's greatly appreciated by meteorologists like myself. They don't really share much about the organization but they do offer a cool option embed data from their forecast on your site. It's the most free with their information I have seen from any country yet.
Barbados
Posted by Ryan
Our trip around the world takes us to the Caribbean, not very far from today's forecast in the grand scheme of things. Barbados is north of Venezuela and separated from the rest of the Lesser Antilles by a few hundred miles, as the island sits east of St. Lucia. It's position means that it is often the first site to see hurricanes marching from the coast of Africa into the Caribbean. Their rainy season lasts for the latter half of the year, essentially through the hurricane season when tropical waves are marching across the Atlantic. The hurricanes typically aren't fully developed when they arrive in Barbados, but it's a good benchmark, seeing what they may do when they arrive at other populated areas of North America.
This beacon out in the middle of the sea alerting the continent to potential hurricanes does have a weather service, Barbados Meteorological Services, though presently their site isn't functioning properly at present.
Nauru
Posted by Ryan
Nauru is a small island in the Pacific with a tormented history of invasion and enslavement in a pair of World Wars and German colonialism, so you have to believe that is why they are as fiercely independent as they are. Nauru is the smallest island nation in the world and they lie in the midst of the tropics. Their rainy season is November to February as the ITCZ passes through. The island is typically quite warm, with highs often in the upper 80s. They are on the equator after all.
They are not a member of the World Meteorological Organization, and I haven't been able to find anything on a weather bureau. They do have a weather station, however.
Liechtenstein
Posted by Ryan
Liechtenstein is a mountain nation wedged between Austria and Switzerland. It covers less than 62 square miles, which makes it smaller than many counties in the United States. It is also the wealthiest nation in the world, per capita thanks to it's banking industry. It also has a prevailing southerly flow that keeps things fairly warm compared to other areas at their altitude. The mountains do, however, induce a lot of little microclimates and induce quite a bit of elevation snow.
Liechtenstein, despite their financial cache, does not have a weather department.
Iceland
Posted by Ryan
Two weeks in a row we take our travels to an island nation, though Iceland is a bit different from last weeks topic country, Cuba. Iceland, of course, is in the north Atlantic just on the outside of the Arctic Circle. They are generally too warm to be icy, at least on the coasts, because the Gulfstream that I constantly refer to in our East Coast forecasts eventually passes just south of the island nation. This keeps the Icelandic winters milder than one might expect for their latitude. The summers, however, don't tend to be very warm. A hot day in Iceland is one that reaches the mid 70s. The path of systems that bring nasty weather to the northeast eventually takes them to Iceland. In many senses, Iceland is the place where systems go to die, and the country is often cloudy and precipitating in some fashion as an area of low pressure disbands over the area. Winds are also a common concern with the strong pressure gradients with those systems. Generally speaking, they never see any thunderstorms in Iceland, and only get lightning when one of their famous volcanoes erupts.
The Icelandic Met Office is the bureau that keeps Iceland abreast of the weather. Their site's home page features three maps, one for wind, another for temperature and the last for precipitation. On the surface, Iceland appears to be one of those countries that keeps the weather forecasting behind the scenes, and hides things like radar or model data. With some digging though, the radar and satellite can be found under the "weather" tab, and further on the "observation" option on the sidebar. Further, under the "shipping forecast" option, you can poke around and find the actual surface analyses as well. So, while it seems the Icelanders are doing their meteorology in the background, they do offer a bit of a window into their world.
(I linked to their English site... for fun, check out Icelandic. They use a lot of letters.)
Cuba
Posted by Ryan
Today's trip around the world takes us to our nation's nearest maritime neighbor, Cuba, which of course lies less than 100 miles south of the Florida Keys. Like many nations in the tropics, Cuba sees a seasonal variation in their thunderstorm activity based on the flow of the ITCZ. This is their rainy season, which also happens to correlate with hurricane season. Ah, the hurricanes. Cuba's position at the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico and at the end of the Atlantic Basin path that most hurricanes take when they develop off the coast of Africa means that the island is frequently ravaged by tropical storms. It's actually rare that the residents of Cuba don't get hit by a hurricane at least once a summer. When they aren't fending off hurricanes, the easterly trades of summer make Cuba an active island for thunderstorms, thanks again to it's elongated position, perfectly oriented to intercept those winds, and have the elevation and required moisture to make every afternoon an adventure in thunderstorm dodging, particularly in the middle of the main island.
The Cubans have been scorned by much of the western world because of their dictator Fidel Castro and his communist state, however in an effort to get back in the good graces of the rest of the world and perhaps show his effective leadership (or something) Castro has sunk a lot of money into the sciences, most notably medical training and research. It should be no surprise, then, that the Instituto de Meteorologia appears to be relatively well funded. Most nations don't have their own satellites or models from which to grab data, and the often pull from the United State's ample resources, so given the current frosty relations between our nations, I was curious to see where they got their satellite data from. Sure enough, NASA, The University of Wisconsin and Intellicast, of all things. Under the Pronostico tab, the "para hoy" you will find today's forecast. An interesting feature is that they show the picture of their forecasters which provides a little accountability, I suppose. Speaking of accountability, the entire roster of the Cuban Meteorology Service lists their e-mail address. Usually, I would e-mail the weather service to find out more about them, or at least inform them of the post. That said, I have personal experience forecasting for Cuba so I know I am mostly accurate on the details, and I don't care to get flagged permanently by the FBI, so if you want to know more about the Cubans, by all means, e-mail away.