China has made great strides in meteorological services over the past decades since the country received the first images back after launching the meteorological satellite Fengyun-1A in September 1988.

Staff members of Central Meteorological Station follow the develpment of a typhoon. (photo provided by the Central Meteorological Station)

To date, China's Fengyun meteorological satellites have provided data to clients in over 90 countries and regions across the globe and more than 2,500 domestic users.

In May 2017, the World Meteorological Organization officially recognized the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) as one of the eight World Meteorological Centers, indicating that China's meteorological services now rank amongst the top in the world.

China has also set up an emergency support mechanism for international users of Fengyun meteorological satellites, which covers disaster prevention as well as mitigation, and furthermore to help Belt and Road countries monitor and better cope with natural hazards.

However, none of these achievements have come easily. The central government and Chinese people have gone through numerous hardships to contribute to the country's success in meteorological services.

In the early days of the People's Republic of China, there were only 101 meteorological observatories in the country, and China could only receive satellite imagery from the Soviet Union and the US. After years of preparation, China began to modernize meteorological services at the end of 1970s.

In 1978, the State Council approved the establishment of three national ground data acquisition stations in Beijing, Guangzhou and Urumqi. Thereafter, the National Satellite Meteorological Center (NSMC), one of the operational units of CMA, spent a few years to study and apply a satellite data processing system developed by Wisconsin University in the US.

Following, a software development platform was required to support the data processing system of the Fengyun-1 meteorological satellite. At the time, China was incapable of developing it alone.

In spite of the lack of technological support, NSMC decided to develop their own software and buy an IBM4361 computer system with $1.5 million offered by the United Nations Development Program for developing countries for usage in construction of satellite applications.

After nearly a five-year effort, NSMC developed 14 software applications working on satellite orbit prediction, temperature inversion in the oceans, and on-orbit inspection and other aspects before the launch of the Fengyun-1 satellite.

In the future, China will continue to deploy new technologies to develop international meteorological services and enhance the capability of global forecasting.