Met Service Head Emphasises Need for Expanded Early-Warning System

Principal Director at the Meteorological Service of Jamaica (Met Service), Evan Thompson, has emphasised the need to expand the island’s public alerting capabilities into a fully integrated, multi-agency framework.

He made the call while speaking during the two-day Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) Workshop, held recently at the Courtleigh Hotel and Suites in New Kingston.

Mr. Thompson reflected on Jamaica’s more than two-decade history with the CAP, a standardised digital format designed to simultaneously transmit emergency alerts across multiple communication channels.

“The Common Alerting Protocol is something that we’ve pursued in Jamaica for quite a while; we have really benefited from the experience from those many years ago. Of course, there have been a lot of changes… a lot of development that has taken place with regard to the Common Alerting Protocol in Jamaica,” he said.

Mr. Thompson noted that the Met Service currently utilises CAP through its SmartAlert system, which operates in conjunction with the SmartMet forecasting workstation.

The system displays real-time Geographic Information System (GIS)-mapped hazard notices, such as small-craft warnings, tropical storm alerts and flash-flood watches, directly on the Met Service’s website and the Jamaica Weather application.

However, Mr. Thompson emphasised that building a comprehensive early-warning network requires collaboration beyond the meteorological sector alone.

“What we have recognised is that the Meteorological Service in Jamaica has really been standing alone, in terms of the introduction of the alerts to the platform and making them available in that way to our public,” the Principal Director said.

“So we wanted to expand that. We recognise that there are so many other stakeholders in Jamaica who really should be contributing to this alerting process, and especially as we move towards ensuring that all our citizens really are pulled in and protected by our early-warning systems,” he added.

Mr. Thompson noted that participants in the workshop were carefully selected because their organisations play a critical role in either generating threat messages or receiving and disseminating them to the public.

Among the participants were representatives from the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), National Works Agency (NWA), Jamaica Public Service Company Limited (JPS), and the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA).

The series of workshops was coordinated throughout the Caribbean by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Caribbean Meteorological Organization (CMO).

The regional training initiative aims to equip local partners with the tools and knowledge needed to strengthen early-warning capacity, while promoting seamless data sharing and safeguarding lives and livelihoods across the Caribbean.