Next year, the Beijing Meteorological Bureau will increase accuracy in weather forecasting by reporting weather in each district and county across the city, the Beijing Times reports.

Accurate weather forecasts are a daily concern, but the weather reports we see on television are often vague and imprecise, along the lines of: Some regions will have drizzle or rainfall.

Yet during the Beijing Olympics, the city streamlined the weather forecasting system to make it possible that the weather around the Olympic venues could be reported and updated every three hours over the course of a day.

The Beijing Meteorological Bureau revealed yesterday that next year Beijing will install a "post-Olympics" weather forecasting system to offer three-hour updates on its weather forecasting service and variations among the city's districts and counties. For example, while in the past it might have been possible to predict rain in the city as a whole, it will be possible to predict weather independently for districts such as Chaoyang and Fengtai. 186 automatic observatories built across the city will ensure accuracy. The current day-to-day weather report is only updated in the morning, midday and evening.

The TV station, radio station, website and weather hot line will accordingly alter the routine weather reporting standards and provide updates on specific conditions every three hours.

(China.org.cn by He Shan, October 27, 2008)