Next time you see unusual or spectacular weather, remember to take a snapshot of it and put it online. You may get your work published and even receive a reward.

Song Yingjie, a well-known weatherman in China is taking a photo at the openning ceremony of the??Weather Paike program. [morningpost.com.cn]

China's meteorological authorities on Monday launched a weather Paike program that encourages the public to record and share weather conditions.

Weather Paike is a cyber phrase that describes people who record weather and its effects with a photo or video.

Those who are interested in this program can upload their works to weather.com.cn, Tencent, Yahoo and Sohu's micro-blog platform.

"The Paike program, which involves more people in recording vivid and timely weather information, supplements traditional weather reports," said Song Yingjie, a well-known weatherman in China.

"Traditional weather reports focus on what is going to happen, while the program records what is happening," Song said.

"It provides detailed information to people in special need. For example, if I have a business trip to Wuhan, the Paike program will provide me with weather pictures in that city to show me what kind of clothes I should wear," said weatherwoman Yang Dan.

"This program provides opportunities to everyone to become a weather reporter," said Feng Shu, a weather reporter from CCTV.

As a famous weather reporter for more than 10 years, Song is a regular Paike user.

"I took the picture of Beijing's first snow this year and uploaded it to my micro blog. Many news media published my photo the next day," he said.

Due to the increasing number of weather emergencies and the fast development of technology, many people like Song now share online what they have seen and experienced in certain weather conditions.

On June 23, torrential rain hit Beijing and a picture showing water flooding down the stairs into a subway station was widely seen online and used as the main front page picture by many newspapers the next day.

However, the picture was not taken by a professional photographer or a weather reporter, but by a graduate student back from the United States for a summer vacation.

"I was not a big fan of photography before," he said. "I just couldn't move at that moment and the sight was incredible. So I took the picture with a cell phone."

He then uploaded his snapshot onto his micro blog.

"I care more about what's going on around me since the photo was published," Yang said. "I've become more interested in recording my life."

Zhang Kairong, manager of mywtv.cn, a weather video website authorized by China Meteorological Administration, said that many netizens uploaded their weather photos or videos before Paike came along.

"The uniqueness of this program is that it adds professional comments to the public's contributions," Zhang said. "But experts will test the genuineness of contributions before they are put on the program."