Steering Committee of the Indian Ocean
Data Rescue Initiative
INDARE-SC
Country Presentation
By
Dookharansing SEETOHUL
Meteorologist
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History
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Measurement of Meteorological parameters started since
1874
Additional observations obtained from an observatory in
the capital and a number of agricultural establishments
In 1902, the first Meteorological outstation was set up in
Rodrigues.
In 1922, upper air wind monitoring was launched at
Vacoas
In 1925, the Meteorological Headquarters moved from
Pamplemousses to Vacoas
In 1939-1945, outstations were set up in Diego Garcia,
St. Brandon and Agalega to cater for military needs.
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In 1950, the Meteorological observatory focused
attention mainly on meteorological functions and gave up
other activities such as Astronomy, Seismography and
monitoring of ozone at the surface
In 1959, the Observatory’s name was changed to
Meteorological Department because of its new priorities
In 1960, radiosonde ascents were started at Vacoas to
observe vertical distribution of temperature and humidity
In 1968, Mauritius acceded to independence and became
a full member state of the World Meteorological
Organisation and in view of its Regional and
International activities, the department became the
Meteorological Services
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Data
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The Mauritius Meteorological Services possesses over 50
years of climate data for a good number of stations fairly
well distributed spatially over the Republic
In 1994, setting of AWS started
At Present
2 Main Stations ( Vacoas Headquarter and Plaisance –
Airport)
23 AWS
Agricultural institutions & Sugar Estates
Volunteers
Some rainfall stations have records of over
100 years.
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Type of data
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rainfall
temperature (Maximum, minimum)
temperature (dry bulb, wet bulb and dew point)
relative humidity
wind direction & speed
visibility
cloud
sunshine
radiation
evaporation
atmospheric pressure
vapour pressure
soil temperature
upper air data
thunderstorm days
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Archiving
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Hourly, 3-hourly & daily values of most of the elements
exist in electronic format. Otherwise, hard copies are
available as well.
Statistics: Means, normals, extremes, standard deviations
etc.
Climate Maps
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Climate maps, showing isolines prepared with data
collected over a long period of time are available for the
following elements: rainfall, temperature, sunshine and
radiation. Wind isotach and wind rose have also been
computed.
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Outer Island Stations Data
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Synoptic stations have also been established at
Rodrigues, St Brandon and Agalega since the late fifties.
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The same type of data is available from these sites for a
period of over 50 years.
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Current Status
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No Data Base: Data is still archived in EXCEL sheets
Raw Data still in hard copy
Used CLICOM in 1980’s, CLIMSOFT never worked
because of incompatibility issues
Use R CLIMDEX software for analysis and assessing of
impacts of climate change
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Projects
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Plan to buy a proper data base software for archiving and
generate climate products
Digitize and Archive all available data
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Proposals
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Financial Support – Lack of financial resources
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Capacity building in both hardware and software
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Guidance
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THANK YOU
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