Predicting the weather in Helmand 22.08.12
6You would think the weather would be easy to predict in Afghanistan during the summer , hot dry and sunny, but its anything but!
Hidden away in a small office in the Air Traffic Control Tower in Camp Bastion are the RAF reservists who are responsible for forecasting the weather for the airfield and the rest of Task Force Helmand.
Working in 12 hour shifts the team gather their weather information from the UK Met Office from which they look at current local conditions and calculate a range of specialist forecasts
The biggest challenge is wind speed. Strong winds quickly whip up dust storms and in a space of 30 minutes visibility can go from ten kilometres to 500 metres which can have a huge impact on operations in theatre especially if the winds come in earlier than expected.