Koninklijk Meteorologisch Instituut van België (KMI)
The Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) is a federal scientific institute that provides meteorological services and conducts research on weather and climate. The RMI provides reliable services based on research, innovation and continuity.
At the end of 2017, the RMI launched the Weather Observations Website Belgium (WOW-BE) platform: https://wow.meteo.be. In this initiative, current weather observations, measured by private individuals, schools and organizations, are being collected and shared. The RMI wants WOW-BE to be the platform on which everyone can share, view, compare and archive historical and current weather observations.
In addition, in August 2019, the RMI added the option to transmit your own weather observation in the popular RMI app. The app users can view the reported observations of other users in real time. Moreover, they are shown as an extra layer in the WOW-BE platform.
The RMI has therefore already run two successful citizen science initiatives. The data generated by these initiatives is used in the tasks that the institute needs to fulfil. For example, the data is used in monitoring and warning of dangerous weather. In addition, the RMI is open to any collaboration to scientifically exploit these new data sources.
