MWANZA GETS NEW WEATHER RADAR
(Posted 20th December 2014)
Airlines flying to Mwanza, Tanzania’s second largest city located on the Southern end of Lake Victoria, will soon be able to get more timely and more accurate weather forecasts, when the newly installed radar system goes operational in early January.
Served domestically by Fastjet with an A319 some 25 times a week, several daily flights by Precision Air using their ATR’s and on regional flights by RwandAir from Kigali using their Bombardier Q400NextGen, is the airport also one of the hubs of Auric Air, which operates the largest domestic scheduled network in Tanzania operating a uniform fleet of 10 Cessna C208B Grand Caravans.
Weather information is crucial for safe flight operations, especially as Lake Victoria is notorious for sudden violent thunderstorms which have storm clouds reach at times well above cruising altitude of aircraft flying to Mwanza or are overflying the area.
With a reach of nearly 500 kilometres does the new system cover the lake and beyond and airlines have already expressed their relief that they will soon have more up to date weather information available for their flight planning. The US manufactured system was bought and installed at a cost of over 2.2 million US Dollars and is after Dar es Salaam, the country’s busiest airport, the second of overall seven such systems the Tanzania Meteorological Agency plans to install across the country.
Besides the aviation sector will civil society too benefit from the new system as weather forecasts are to be made public for the agricultural sector, the fishing industry on the lake and to allow timely countermeasures for authorities in case of extreme weather heading Mwanza’s way.
