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Climate Change Resilience

28 January 2025, Nuku’alofa, Tonga - The Tonga Meteorological Services (Tonga Met) kicked off the New Year with significant steps forward in its radar meteorology and severe weather forecasting capabilities, supported by the Weather Ready Pacific Programme.

Eleven staff from Tonga Met, two of which were females, participated in a 2 week-long advanced training delivered by regional meteorological experts from the New Zealand Meteorological Service on interpreting and utilising advanced high level weather radar products to track severe weather events closely.

Participants also received training in critical meteorological concepts, such as thermodynamics and convection forecasting, to better understand and apply radar products in forecasting severe thunderstorms events.

“This is a significant initiative with practical implications conducted under the Pacific Meteorological Council’s Weather Ready Pacific Programme, to enhance and support the capabilities of the National Meteorological Services in the Pacific Region,” said Mr. Laitia Fifita, Director of Tonga Meteorological Services.  

“This training underscores Tonga’s commitment to improving its weather monitoring and forecasting infrastructure in the face of increasingly severe weather patterns, and we are grateful to Mr. Raveen Das of the New Zealand Meteorological Services for designing and leading the two-phase training program. Tonga Met looks forward to future sessions that will further build Tonga’s capacity for severe weather forecasting and emergency preparedness,” Mr. Fifita added. 

This advanced training (Phase 2 of 2) was carried out over two weeks from 13 – 25 January 2025 and focused on interpreting and utilising advanced high level weather radar products to track severe weather events closely. 

Each training day began with the duty forecaster delivering a comprehensive weather briefing. These briefings incorporated data from the new Tonga Weather Radar, conceptual knowledge from the severe weather forecasting training, tools introduced under the Severe Weather Forecasting Enhancement Pilot program, and all available observations. This structured approach ensured that lessons from Phase 1 of the training were fully integrated into daily operations. Phase 2 of the training built upon the foundations which were introduced to the participants during Phase 1. 

A key component of this Advanced Phase 2 focused on enhancing Tonga’s Early Warning System for meteorological hazards. This included a full day workshop dedicated to strengthening the collaboration between the Tonga Met Office, the National Disaster Risk Management Office (NDRMO) and other first responder organisations to ensure a coordinated and effective response to severe weather events. This approach aimed to enhance the collaboration of key multi-hazard early warning agencies to achieve goals under the global Early Warnings For All initiative.