The Shipping Community witnessed the official launch of the "Weather Information for the Marine Community" website

Members of the Shipping Community witnessed the official launch of the "Weather Information for the Marine Community" website at the fifth meeting of the Liaison Group for the Shipping Community of the Hong Kong Observatory on 6 June 2014. The "Weather Information for the Marine Community" website (http://www.hko.gov.hk/wservice/tsheet/pms/mariners_e.htm) centralizes weather information and forecasts which are of interest to the marine community including real time weather observations, marine and tropical cyclone forecasts, information on port meteorological services and other useful links such as with the World Meteorological Organization, International Maritime Organization and Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre.

Before the meeting, Mr. C.M. Shun, Director of the Hong Kong Observatory, presented awards to Hong Kong Voluntary Observation Ships (HKVOS) which made over 300 weather observations in 2013, in appreciation of their outstanding effort in contributing to the maritime safety worldwide. The six HKVOS commended are OOCL Asia (Diamond Award), Maersk Gairloch (Platinum Award), Dapeng Moon, Maersk La Paz, OOCL Jakarta and SuperStar Aquarius (Gold Award). Mr. Shun also presented participation certificates jointly issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC) to five Voluntary Observation Ship Climate (VOSClim), a class of VOS which provides high-quality ship weather reports.

Twenty-four representatives from shipping companies, container terminal operators, cruise terminal operator and the Observatory attended the meeting.