- FASTA delivers state-of-the-art near-real-time nowcasting products
- FASTA can inform key decision-making
- FASTA can help to save lives and livelihoods
- FASTA is partnered with national weather services – rather than a competitor
FASTA brings near real-time weather information to East Africa.
Our app and Application Programming Interface (API) provide instant access to current and approaching storm activity in your region.
FASTA provides reliable information to enhance weather forecasts, help populations prepare for severe weather, and inform government and business decision-making.
FASTA combines the most up to date data available and nowcasting – a revolutionary short-term weather forecasting system – to identify rainfall and storm activity. It has been developed by an international team of researchers and weather experts.
What is Nowcasting?
Nowcasting provides accurate predictions of weather over the next few hours.
These short-term forecasts are highly reliable because they use real-world data, and they are updated every fifteen minutes to reflect changes in the skies overhead.
Our nowcasting system uses satellite imagery to provide a visual display of the weather over Africa between now and the next hour.
Nowcasting is especially useful for helping people and businesses to respond to high-impact storms because it provides immediate and accurate warnings for approaching weather systems.
FASTA offers significant benefits for people working in a wide range of sectors, including: agriculture, aviation, transport, fisheries, energy, insurance and disaster risk management.
The FASTA team is working to deliver nowcasting solutions across Africa by integrating our services into different sectors to protect lives, boost productivity and safeguard investments.
In Kenya, FASTA is partnered with the Kenya Meteorological Department.
Our nowcasting products can be accessed via the FASTA App, via the FASTA Application Programming Interface (API) for integration into existing systems, or via a web interface.
If you would like to trial the FASTA API, or the new web interface please contact us.
Importance of Nowcasting
- Weather models are not perfect, especially over Africa
- Because nowcasting uses observations, it is more accurate
- Nowcasting is especially useful for high-impact weather
- However, it only covers the next few hours. Forecasts from weather models are still useful for longer forecasts