ABOUT US

The Fiji Meteorological Service (FMS) functions as a Department under the Government of Fiji Islands and has the responsibility to provide an essential service to the country. It also serves on a regional scale providing weather forecasting and tropical cyclone warning services to many other countries and a vast area of the tropical South-west Pacific.

Fiji Meteorological Service Headquarters in Namaka, Nadi Airport.

• To be a regional leader in meteorological science and expertise, and in the provision of quality weather and climate services.

Mission

• To provide quality meteorological expertise and professional services in support of Fiji’s economic development, and for the safety and benefit of the community through up to date technology, knowledge and skills.
• To deliver quality weather forecast, warning and advisory services to the South Pacific Island Nations and Territories falling within FMS area of responsibility.
• To serve aviation and marine weather forecasting needs of the South Pacific region as per international agreements and arrangements.

Objectives

• To satisfy Fijis need for the supply of weather and climate data, archive and analyse this data, and based on this, issue forecasts, warnings and other information as required;
• To monitor the climate of Fiji and advise on any changes due to global warming and other factors;
• To provide weather forecast and warning services for other South Pacific Island Nations, as agreed.
• To function as a Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre (RSMC) for tropical cyclones, under the World Weather Watch Programme of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
• To serve as the aviation Meteorological Watch Authority (MWA) for the Nadi Flight Information Region (FIR) as per ICAO designation
• To provide marine forecast and warning services for international waters of the tropical South-west Pacific as per WMO and International Oceanic Commission

The Department has two main output divisions, namely, the Forecast Services and Climate Services Divisions.There are six support divisions:Computing and Information Systems, Technical Systems, Reporting and Facilities, Services Development, Finance and Administration Division

One of the two main operational arms of the Department of Meteorology is the Forecast Services Division, which incorporates the Weather Forecasting Centre (WFC) and Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre Nadi-Tropical Cyclone Centre (RSMC Nadi-TCC). The Division operates 24 hours a day, all the year round providing an essential weather service to a large area of the Southwest Pacific region. NWFC is responsible for providing weather forecasting and warning services for Fiji, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Wallis and Futuna, and special advisory services for Samoa and Vanuatu. It also functions as the Meteorological Watch Office for the Nadi Flight Information Region (FIR), (area shaded yellow in the map below).

RSMC Nadi-TCC is responsible for providing tropical cyclone information services for an area (shaded light green in map) which is in excess of 20 million square kilometres extending from the Equator to 25 degrees South Latitude, between 160 degrees East and 120 degrees West Longitude.It names, monitors and issues regular warnings and advisory information on all tropical cyclones occurring in this region for the safety of all communities, including marine and aviation users.

CSD is responsible for meeting Fiji’ s needs for climatological data and expertise, and for promoting the effective use of this data and expertise. It is the national repository for climatological data. It responds to user enquires, it prepares and supplies data products, it develops and implements new user services and data applications and it provides consultative services.

Computing Information Systems Division

C&IS is responsible for maintenance and support of all computer hardware and software systems of FMS. The Division’s main services include developing and maintaining data a nd information processing systems; designing, implementing, monitoring and maintaining FMS’s information networks, identifying and resolving design issues relating to FMS’s computer hardware and software systems and maintaining the PC’s, printers and other peripheral computing equipment.

The Division’s responsibility is to provide and manage technical support staff, instrumentation and recording standards with other necessary facilities to produce and ensure regular and quality meteorological data from all weather reporting stations in its Reporting Network for use in weather forecasting and climate monitoring. It carries out regular inspections of all reporting stationsincluding 17 synoptic, 50 climate and some rainfall stations.

It is also responsible for the establishment and closing of all reporting stations and manning of the Department’s synoptic stations that are still operated manually and maintains store supplies for all stations.

The Technical Systems Division is responsible for the design, installation and maintenance of electronic equipment and other engineering related facilities of the Department. These include the weather radars, automatic weather stations, satellite receivers, hydrogen generator and stand-by electricity generators.

The Services Development Division focuses on the development of the meteorological services through research and provision of tailored customer-focused services. It also looks into the provision of new services and human resource development.

The Division is responsible for all accounting functions of the Department. Fiji Meteorological Service is a self accounting Department and handles and coordinates all its financial account keeping from its headquarters in Nadi. This poses some difficulty in communications with the Ministry of Finance as we do not have on line access to the main accounts.

The Administration Division is responsible for providing administrative support service to the Department. It also meets the department’s administrative obligations to the Ministry, the Public Service Commission, other Government and Statutory agencies. The Division also looks after personnel matters in the department.

Further information can be obtained from:

Contacts