Meteorological Satellite Application Facility Launched to Strengthen Severe Weather Forecasting Across Africa

The African Meteorological Satellite Application Facility (AMSAF) was launched on Monday Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, enabling the strengthening of nowcasting capabilities across African countries using next-generation satellite data. 

Severe weather in parts of Africa, including storms and tornadoes, has in recent years led to flooding and significant damage to infrastructure, resulting in fatalities and the displacement of thousands. 

Each year, millions of people in these regions are affected by extreme events, highlighting the urgent need for timely and accurate weather information. 

The AMSAF will enable national meteorological and hydrological services across the continent to improve their own short-term forecasts, known as ‘nowcasts’ (0–6-hour forecasts), making them more robust and tailored to regional hazards and national priorities. 

It also supports the United Nations Early Warnings for All initiative and the African Union’s AMHEWAS framework, strengthening multi-hazard early warning systems across Africa. 

“The AMSAF represents an important step in supporting African countries to take full ownership of their weather forecasting capabilities,” said Phil Evans, Director-General of EUMETSAT. 

“By advancing the development of locally tailored satellite products, we are helping strengthen resilience to extreme weather and support sustainable development across the continent.” 

The AMSAF will establish a network of regional nowcasting centres across Africa. Together, these centres will serve Western, Eastern, Central, and Southern Africa, and the ACMAD (African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development, based in Niger) will contribute to this network.

Using data from Meteosat Third Generation satellites, the AMSAF centres will produce nowcasts to support timely decision-making at national levels.

Each centre will operate with local or cloud-based processing infrastructure and be supported by a comprehensive capacity-building programme. 

The AMSAF is established by the African Union Commission under the EU-funded Strengthening Early Warning in Africa (SEWA) project, part of the European Commission’s Global Gateway Africa–EU Space Partnership Programme. 

SEWA is jointly implemented by EUMETSAT, the African Union Commission (AUC), and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). 

As part of this effort, and in recognition of the importance of MTG data for the African continent, EUMETSAT will this year expand access to MTG data across Africa, notably by increasing data bandwidth on its operational EUMETCast Africa dissemination system. 

This expansion will enable the AMSAF and national forecasters to benefit from improved data availability. 

Discover here the stunning real-time view of Africa captured by Meteosat-12 from its geostationary orbit 36,000 km above Earth, combining FCI imagery with lightning observations.

Learn how the new African Meteorological Satellite Application Facility will help meteorological services unlock the full potential of MTG data for nowcasting and early warnings in the article: “Forecasting at storm speed across Africa.”