Afghanistan Meteorological Authority

The Afghanistan Meteorological Authority is located in Kabul, Afghanistan. Under the leadership of Abdul Qadeer, a staff of 120 personnel are re-building a weather infrastructure after years of Taliban-led violence and censorship.

Qadeer has been the head of the authority since the late 1970s.

History

In 1996, Taliban forces sacked its office because weather forecasting had been banned as it was considered to be sorcery. Equipment was ruined and over 100 years worth of weather records were destroyed. Because of the ban, farmers were eventually harmed because drought information and forecasting could not take place. Also, in 1998, an Ariana Afghan Airlines flight flew into unexpected weather, causing it to crash into a mountain, killing 45 people.

During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Meteorological Authority had one of the most advanced weather stations available at the time and a staff of 600.

Recovery

In 2003, France financed the installation of over a dozen simple weather stations around Afghanistan. The stations provide basic information such as temperature, barometric pressure, and rain fall. Also in 2003, the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva provided the Authority with copies of its lost records.

Canadian troops at Camp Julien assist in collecting data by launching weather balloons twice a day. The data is primarily for NATO and the armies of the U.S. and Germany, but it is shared with the Authority as well.