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WOW was launched earlier this year by the Met Office in partnership with the Royal Meteorological Society and supported by the Department of Education. The aim was to help educate children about the weather and encourage further growth in the UK's amateur weather observing community, creating the UK's largest source of weather observations.

There has been huge interest in WOW which receives observations from weather enthusiasts in 116 countries across the world. Storuman in Sweden provides WOW with the most northern observations, while Whitehorse in Canada is WOW's most western observation. Oamaru and Wairoa in New Zealand provide the most southern and eastern observations submitted to the site.

Aidan Green, Land and Marine Observations Manager at the Met Office, said: "With an average of 2 million observations submitted every month, WOW has really captured the imagination of weather enthusiasts. It demonstrates how easy it is for anyone to get involved and share current weather observations to generate a picture of how the weather varies from place to place and moves across the world."

Since the launch in June, users have provided feedback on WOW and a number of improvements have followed, including:

• Significant changes to how data is stored, increasing performance speed.
• New icons and layers have been added to the map on the homepage including rainfall for improved user interaction.
• Quick observations can now be entered by anyone, even if the user is not logged in, which means it will be quick and easy for any member of the public to let us know about the conditions where they are, especially during severe weather such as snow.
• Images can be easily uploaded at the time of submitting observation, which can then instantly be seen on the map or in the new "Photo Gallery" view.
• The ability to compare a site with the nearest Met Office site at the click of a button for the UK and parts of Europe, allowing weather enthusiasts to see how their own readings compare.

The Met Office thinks users will welcome these enhancements, some of which have been driven from the feedback received. Together this will make the site much more interesting and appealing to the weather enthusiast community.

There is still huge potential for WOW, with plans to further develop links with education and grow the network of international observations.