In September 2007, Hong Kong Observatory's LIDAR Wind Shear Alerting Service won the championship of the "Specialized Service" category of the Civil Service Outstanding Service Award Scheme 2007 (http://www.csb.gov.hk/english/admin/hrm/1042.html).  Recently, this was reported by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in its online Media Centre (http://www.wmo.ch/pages/mediacentre/news/index_en.html) as well as in its newsletter "MeteoWorld" (accessible on the WMO website at: http://www.wmo.ch/pages/publications/meteoworld/_en/news.html).

The LIght Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) system uses a laser beam to measure the winds up to 10 km away in non-rainy weather condition.  The Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) is the first meteorological service in the world that introduced the LIDAR for airport weather alerting.  Making use of the LIDAR data collected along the airport glide paths, HKO developed the world-first LIDAR-based wind shear alerting system and put it into operational use at the Hong Kong International Airport in 2005.  HKO's achievements in the applications of the LIDAR have previously been reported in renowned international magazines including "Aerospace America" of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in late 2006 and "ICAO Journal" of the International Civil Aviation Organization in early 2007 (http://www.icao.int/icao/en/jr/2007/6202_en.pdf).

For further details about the Observatory's award, please visit:

http://www.weather.gov.hk/hkonews/news-p70e.htm.