UW-Madison continues to aid Hurricane Mitch recovery

The university’s Space Science and Engineering Center is working with other agencies in the continuing effort to help Central America recover and rebuild after Hurricane Mitch’s devastation in 1998.

The U.S. Congress approved millions of dollars for recovery efforts via U.S. AID, but recovery costs for the region are estimated in the billions. Many infrastructure and preparedness issues still remain unaddressed, including the ability to receive timely weather data.

As part of U.S. government contributions to the area’s recovery, UW–Madison’s SSEC is working to improve the area’s ability to respond to natural disasters by enhancing their access to weather information.

SSEC’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, together with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will supply and help install a satellite ground receiving station that will serve a number of Central American countries, including four hit by Mitch. Others are supplying training and workstations for display and analysis of satellite data, while SSEC provides hardware and installation support. Robert Oehlkers, a senior instrumentation technologist, is heading up the effort for UW–Madison.

The new system will augment Central America’s access to both geostationary and polar orbiting satellite data. The first provides frequent imagery and atmospheric information over the entire western hemisphere while the second provides high-resolution data twice a day.

Denise Laitsch, SSEC’s manager for this project, stresses that SSEC is a long-standing provider of weather data.

“We’ve been a primary source of global satellite imagery for decades,” Laitsch says. “It’s good to see access opening up to Central America.”