Mr. K. Suleiman - Director Zanzibar Office

Zanzibar Office Division is responsible to the Chief Executive in delivering meteorological services in the Islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. It is headed by a Director who is also an advisor to the Chief Executive on all matters relating to issuance of meteorological services over the Zanzibar islands pursuant to the needs and requirements of the Zanzibar Revolutionary Government. It has a total of 47 employees in various cadres over Zanzibar and Pemba.

In Zanzibar most of meteorological operations are run in the offices accommodated at the ground floor of the TMA/TCAA complex at the Zanzibar International Airport. Other activities are accommodated at the new TMA owned building, some 600 meters from the Zanzibar Airport. The building accommodates offices for Director Zanzibar, some offices of sectional heads, registry, weather studio, public weather, agro-meteorology, stores, accounts, conference and meteorological instruments workshop. Meteorological operations in Pemba are run in the office accommodated by the arrival/departure building complex at Karume Airport. Both Zanzibar and Pemba meteorological stations (Surface Synoptic) are operating on 24 hours bases.

There is an Agro-meteorological station based at the Kizimbani Agricultural Experimental station which provides general and user specific Agro-meteorological services to various users.

There are about 36 rainfall stations in Zanzibar and Pemba . The operations of these stations depend on voluntary observers at different institutions such as Agricultural centres, schools, District Offices etc. It is also planned to establish a port meteorological office at Zanzibar port in the near future to improve safety, efficiency and regularity of marine operations.

The TMA Zanzibar office is divided into four main sections:

• Forecast Section
• Observatory Section
• Communications Section
• Technical Services Section

Forecast Section which is based at Zanzibar Airport is responsible for the provision of:

• Meteorological services for national and international air navigation for safety, regularity and efficiency of air travel. This includes provision of weather folder for each of the aircrafts giving specific details of en-route weather conditions at the expected time of flight. The duty forecaster also appends a trend type forecast to all half hourly weather observations.
• Weather services that include basic information needed by the public for safety and comfort from hazardous meteorological events and for planning of various activities.
• Daily weather forecasts for the entire coastal belt and its hinterlands, islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, onset and cessation of seasonal rains, and the issuance of warnings of extreme weather events.
• Most of these public good services are made freely available through the media such as Radio and Zanzibar Television, Zanzibar Leo newspaper and the recently private established Zenj FM radio.
• Climatological data and environmental information for tailored services are also issued upon request.

The observatory which is based at the airport has the following main functions:

• To do half hourly weather observation of various meteorological elements.
• To plot, code and decode meteorological data and messages.
• To compile meteograms and plotted weather charts for archiving.
• To keep daily weather record ? To keep record of the data of all stations

The meteorological observatory at Karume Airport in Pemba has similar functions except that the observations are done on hourly basis.

This section which is also based at Zanzibar Airport is linked to the National Meteorological Telecommunications Centre (NMTC) in the Central Forecasting Office (CFO) in Dar es Salaam at medium speed through an African Meteorological Environmental Diagnostic Integrated System (AMEDIS) communication system for exchange of data and products. Single Sided Band (SSB) radio is also used here to collect and disseminate observational data from Pemba and other stations. The section also uses conventional telephone and the Premicel terminal that uses Short Message Services (SMS) in transmitting and receiving data. With the establishment of internet connectivity, data is also received from and sent to National Meteorological Telecommunications Centre (NMTC) by electronic mail. Retim Africa (Synergie), an integrated system on a workstation for operational forecasting, has also been installed in this section in early July, 2007.

This section is responsible for:

• Carrying out inspection, installation and maintenance of meteorological systems, equipment and instruments
• Coordinating all activities which concern with the smooth running of daily activities of engineering at Zanzibar and Pemba airports.
• Coordinating with Technical Division all activities which concern with the development of engineering and electronics.