Samoa commemorated World Meteorological Day on Friday with the theme: “The sun, the earth and the weather.”

Held at Vailima, Deputy Prime Minister, Fiame Naomi Mata'afa, said this year’s theme enforces the importance of the sun in delivering the energy that powers all life on earth, driving the weather ocean currents and hydrological cycle.

“Today Samoa celebrates the World Meteorological day which showcases the essential contribution of National Meteorological and Hydrological services to the safety and wellbeing of society,” she said.

 “Programmes for this activity will include a career awareness programme for science students from five fields of meteorology, climatology, hydrology, geo science, and ozone.

“More importantly, the Government’s consultation of the MET bill; a milestone for the Samoa, Meteorology Division, and the Ministry,” she added.

With the celebrations in Samoa, Mulipola Tainau Titimaea said Samoa joined 185 other countries in doing so.

He emphasized the importance of the career awareness programme.

“We see that many students are not interested in this path anymore, so we are trying our best to attract their attention to science again, by bringing them over here,” he said.

Mulipola also wanted to let the public know that the Samoa Meteorological Office has upgraded their meteorological services along with the efforts to improve and increase capacity building programmes for their staff.

“For your information, we have upgraded our services, in terms of watching weather patterns, forecasting winds and heavy rain.

“We are now able to read the weather patterns better, compared to when we just started up, due to the many upgrades in equipment and technological advancements to help us forecast our weather patterns constantly,” he said.

According to Mulipola, multiple equipment have been installed all over Samoa to collect the data and automatically transfer the information to the MET office for reliable weather reports.

Every 23 March, the World Meteorological Organization commemorates the coming into force of the Convention establishing the World Meteorological Organization on 23 March 1950.