Improving early warning of acute food insecurity with 3D-printed weather stations

Tracking the complex dance between weather patterns and crop yields is integral to our survival. For communities across parts of Africa, however, the number of functioning weather stations has significantly declined in recent decades, leading to challenges in forecasting agricultural outcomes and predicting future acute food insecurity. The solution? Supporting local meteorological agencies in rebuilding and strengthening these networks. Here’s how this work is being done. 

The Critical Need for Local Weather Monitoring 

Enhancing local weather monitoring helps communities better prepare for severe weather. Timely, reliable forecasts allow people to make critical decisions: when to evacuate, when to secure homes and property, and how to protect livelihoods from the impacts of extreme weather events. 

For many communities, weather information is about more than safety. Rainfall and seasonal conditions also determine whether crops will grow and food will be available in the months to come. Strengthening local weather monitoring helps communities prepare not only for extreme weather, but also for the risk of acute food insecurity. 

For data-sparse regions across Africa, however, a lack of funds and human resources to purchase, install, operate, and maintain weather stations on a wide scale presents significant barriers to monitoring extreme weather and its potential impact on food security. 

Partners in Strengthening Early Warning Capacity 

To help overcome these barriers, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) supports the Enhancing Meteorological Networks Partnership (EMNP), a collaboration between the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) COMET program, the University of California Santa Barbara Climate Hazards Center (CHC), and collaborating National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) in southern and eastern Africa to strengthen local weather monitoring capacity. 

Through this partnership, the EMNP supports the NMHSs in the fabrication, installation, and maintenance of low-cost 3D-Printed Automatic Weather Stations (3D-PAWS) developed by the COMET Program at UCAR. This end-to-end fabrication and operation model is critical for long-term resilience as it enables communities to retain ownership of their weather observation networks and independently sustain them. 

3D-Printed Automatic Weather Stations Help Build Resilience 

The decline of existing weather stations within these regions underscores the importance of community ownership for sustaining weather observation networks. Many of the defunct AWSs were installed by commercial vendors and eventually failed due to a lack of support and maintenance. And for many regions, maintaining these expensive commercial stations is often cost-prohibitive.

Because 3D-PAWS stations can be fabricated and maintained at a fraction of the cost of commercial systems, NMHSs can build, repair, and maintain their networks independently, circumventing the issues they often encountered with commercial units. 

Benefits of a low-cost 3D-PAWS system

• Uses low-cost, reliable micro-sensors
• Can be assembled locally
• Components can be re-printed
• Local agencies take ownership in building and maintaining observation networks

Boosting Forecast Confidence 

3D-PAWS provide critical, real-time data on rainfall, temperature, relative humidity, and other atmospheric conditions, providing more in-situ (on-the-ground) data that complement satellite observations to improve forecasts and preparedness for weather hazards.

When 3D-PAWS’s in-situ data is integrated with the CHC’s Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) rainfall dataset, confidence of rainfall forecasts across early warning systems increases. This was seen in 2025 when the rain gauge records from 3D-PAWS across Kenya verified a shortened rainy season, resulting in a drought. 

Improvements in real-time monitoring of rainfall and temperature extremes through the expansion of 3D-PAWS in Southern and Eastern Africa is already evident. Recently deployed stations in Zimbabwe, for example, have strengthened local capacity to verify heavy rainfall events and dry spells during the agricultural season, providing ground-truth data to support national advisories and FEWS NET’s food security analysis. 

“Building the capacity to monitor weather locally is key to protecting communities from acute food insecurity,” CHC Director Chris Funk said. “Reliable weather station observations are fundamental to increasing data quality and improving local forecasting of rainfall, agricultural production, and food emergencies. By strengthening these observation networks, we are restoring the data needed to provide timely, evidence-based early warning. For example, when communities face critical decisions – such as planting precious seeds or allocating scarce resources ahead of potential floods – timely, trusted rainfall observations are essential to informing effective action.” 

Building Expertise, Together 

Each regional NMHS receives extensive training on the fabrication of 3D-PAWS’ sensors, how to build and install the stations, and how to keep the stations up and running. COMET engineers and scientists typically lead an initial two-week training workshop and follow-up with another training about six months later. These workshops go beyond training participants on the fabrication of stations by preparing them for using 3D-PAWS under real-world conditions.   

“The most effective aspects of the training were the combination of clear explanations, practical examples, and opportunities to apply the concepts in realistic scenarios,” a participant from the Ethiopia training workshop shared on a post-workshop survey. “The hands-on exercises helped reinforce learning and made it easier to retain the material. Interactive discussions and the ability to ask questions also increased engagement and clarified complex topics.” 

Sustainable Expansion of Weather Observation Networks 

Significant progress toward enhancing local weather monitoring has already been gained across Southern and Eastern Africa since the EMNP began its partnership in 2023. In Kenya, for example, the team established 55 3D-PAWS with the Kenya Meteorological Services Authority (KMSA) by 2025. In 2026, the team expanded 3D-PAWS networks in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, and Ethiopia.

“The progress we are seeing in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Madagascar demonstrates the value of locally managed weather observation networks,” said Paul Kucera, the late assistant director of UCAR’s COMET program. “These stations not only fill critical data gaps, but through close partnership with national meteorological services, they strengthen local ownership, build technical capacity in-country, and enhance the long-term resilience of observation networks.”

The UCAR COMET 3D-PAWS initiative is supported by the U.S. Department of State and the National Weather Service (NWS) International Affairs Office (IOA).