The National Center for Meteorology and Climatology of the Air Force has issued 10 warnings of “adverse meteorological conditions”. To give an idea of the effort expended and the results achieved, the overview of events can be summarized with some figures reported on the website: www.meteoam.it.
During these 18 days, about 2.5 million users “clicked” on the public website of the AM Meteorological Service, which provided, with almost absolute continuity, up-to-date and detailed information on the current and projected weather conditions.
Within the site it was possible to “browse” through the various thematic areas, ranging from metealarm, the service for alerting about extreme weather events, to clima, which provides meteorological services, to wwis, which provides services for World Meteorological Information, and so on.
Of the verified visits, approximately 1 million were made by unique visitors and, among them, approximately 38% were connected to the site for the first time.
During the period, however, there were also some moments of criticality, essentially due to the high number of simultaneous access attempts; at certain points, the threshold of thirteen thousand concurrent sessions active on “meteoam.it” was exceeded.
The days of January 30, 3.5, 7, 8 and 9 February were particularly difficult for the users, as there were delays in responding to requests for the extraordinary number of access requests made.
In particular, during the days of February 7, 8 and 9, it is estimated that approximately 40% of the requests for content on meteoam.it were successfully fulfilled, approximately 30% were not fulfilled satisfactorily and the remaining 30% were not fulfilled at all.
Not coincidentally, on the 7th of February, exceptionally high numbers of visits to the site were also recorded. wwwold.meteoam.it, With over 50,000 visits, well above the average recorded during the period when it was the official website.
The day on which the absolute record for access was reached was, however, February 10, with over 207,000 visits, a total of 3.2 million pages viewed, and over 410 Gigabytes of content released through an Internet connection at 100 Mbit/sec.
The CNMCA, a department subordinate to the Air Force Command, is the central operational body of the Air Force Meteorological Service. It is responsible for receiving, processing, and disseminating, nationally and internationally, conventional and satellite meteorological data and information. It elaborates and distributes basic meteorological analyses and forecasts for the specific needs of the Armed Forces and for aeronautical and general public use. It produces and disseminates meteorological warnings for Civil Protection and for the safeguarding of life at sea. It manages the meteorological databases and provides for the analysis, design, and development of new products for the needs of the Service’s entities.
The CNMCA is based at the “Mario De Bernardi” airport in Pratica di Mare, Pomezia (Rome).
