The WMO:

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It is the UN system's authoritative voice on the state and behavior of the Earth's atmosphere, its interaction with the oceans, the climate it produces and the resulting distribution of water resources."

What does NWS Get out of Working with the WMO?

The WMO coordinates the sharing and exchange of  a tremendous amount of free data and products between nations.  These include conventional observations - radiosondes (upper air soundings), surface observations, ocean observations, aircraft observations, radar observations, satellite observations, and a large amount of forecast and warning data and information.  Much of these data pass through the WMO Information System and are received by NOAA through the hub it operates as a WMO Global Information System Center (GISC) and as part of the WMO Global Telecommunication System (GTS).  NOAA shares around 5.4 gigabytes of weather data per day and we receive around 15.9 gigabytes per day of data from the rest of the world, about 3 times the amount of data we provide.  This data is used in our numerical weather prediction models and to support other mission requirements.  It is critical for us to produce accurate and timely weather, climate and water predictions.  This data is also shared with the U.S. weather enterprise, eg, other government agencies, academic and research institutions, private enterprises and the public.

In addition to obtaining access to data, engaging directly with the WMO and partner countries is an opportunity to demonstrate U.S. leadership in meteorology, climate, hydrology and atmospheric science.  NOAA operates numerous WMO-recognized global centers, with obligations for providing forecasts and mission support  to domestic and international customers.  These include the Aviation Weather Center (AWC), the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the Ocean Prediction Center (OPC), just to name a few. 

Our efforts in the WMO, including operating these global centers, allows the U.S. to contribute our expertise to help the global community deal with the meteorological, climatological and hydrological threats.  

The latest issue of the WMO Bulletin

WMO Technical Commissions

The technical work of the WMO is organized into two Commissions: the Commission for Weather, Climate, Water and Related Environmental Services & Applications (Services Commission) and the The Commission for Observation, Infrastructure and Information Systems (Infrastructure Commission)

The Services Commission contributes to the development and implementation of globally harmonized weather, climate, water, ocean and environment related services and applications to enable informed decision making and realization of socioeconomic benefits by all user communities and society as a whole. Services Commissions Website

The Infrastructure Commission contributes to the development and implementation of globally coordinated systems for acquiring, processing, transmitting, and disseminating Earth system observations, and related standards; coordination of the production and use of standardized analysis and model forecast fields; and development and implementation of sound data and information management practices for all WMO Programmes and their associated application and services areas.  Infrastructure Commission Website

For further information about the WMO, go to their website https://public.wmo.int/en.