July 2008 — Martin Munkhondya made an initial data rescue trip to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
October 14, 2008 — IEDRO received three CDs from the Tanzania Meteorological Agency containing 1878 PIBAL Observations from Bukoba (WMO#63729) for the period January 1965 through June 1970. They passed quality checks and were sent to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).
June 29, 2009 — 3611 images were received so far.
August 6, 2009 — Four CDs arrived.
August 26 —28, 2009 – Africa Program Manager, Martin M. Munkhondya, met with: Mr. F. Tilya, Manager in the Climatology and Climate Change Division and focal point for Tanzania’s data rescue activities; Mr. A. Kanemba, Manager of International Affairs; and Dr. E. J. Mpeta, Director for Research and Applied Meteorology. Dr. Mpeta welcomed the idea of the ongoing project of upper air data rescue in their agency.
Left: Mr. Martin M. Munkhondya; middle: Mr. P.F. Tibaijuka, Director General for the Tanzania Meteorological Agency; right: Mr. F. Tilya
January 4, 2010 — IEDRO received a CD with Tabora (63832) PIBAL observations covering the years 1972, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82, 84 and 85, totaling 1,303 images. Tanzania had trouble imaging their PIBAL charts (upper-air weather observations) since the data was written in pencil too faint for the camera to pick up. Rick suggested that Tanzania FedEx their original paper records to IEDRO Headquarters where our very sensitive scanner should be able to image the records so that the data can be read by the NOAA digitization contractors.
February 16, 2010 — Ben Johnson took a couple of replacement digital cameras for Project Manager, Martin Munkhondya, to give to the site to replace inoperative ones.
March 2010 — IEDRO received over 2500 PIBAL Observations from Tanzania that successfully passed quality checks. The data were sent on to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) for digitization.
June 2010 — Tanzania sent IEDRO two CDs with the upper-air PIBAL (Pilot Balloon) observations for MWANZA (from the Mwanza station) for the period 1967 through 1985. These also passed quality checks. The data were sent onto NCDC for digitization.