Lack of rain gauges putting weathermen at disadvantage
While some areas of Cambodia are undoubtedly suffering from an extended dry season, a lack of rain gauges means that comprehensive data is hard to find.
Oum Ryna, director of the Department of Meteorology at the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology, told Post Weekend that the Kingdom’s weather stations, required for collecting ground data ranging from wind speed to rainfall, were in a sorry state.
Although eight automatic weather stations were installed by the Japanese development organisation JICA in the early 2000s, they have failed in the years since. Some 200 manual rain gauges were also installed throughout the country, though they are only sporadically attended to. Rainfall is only rarely recorded, even on days with heavy thunderstorms.
