World Meteorological Day

On March 23, 1950, the World Meteorological Organization was created as a specialized agency of the United Nations. The WMO speaks on the state of Earth’s atmosphere and reports its interaction with oceans, the climate it produces, and the resulting distribution of water resources. The WMO assumed the responsibilities of the International Meteorological Organization that had operated from 1873 to exchange weather information among countries for weather forecasting.

Each year, the WMO observes its anniversary date as World Meteorological Day. It is the third day in a sequence of three days that the United Nations agencies use to report on, and to call world attention to, the state of the planet’s forests, water resources, and weather complex. Earth observation satellites constantly evaluate the state of these resources in real time.

Just like its forest impact, water cycle, and atmosphere, Earth’s weather has no political boundaries. Weather-, climate-, and water-related hazards account for nearly 90% of all natural disasters around the globe. Here’s a summary:

Climate change disrupts the natural pattern of seasons. It increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events — heat waves, droughts, tornadoes, heavy rainfall — and all provide a preview of a hotter, drier, wetter future. The theme of World Meteorological Day 2026  is “Extreme Weather” – an event that is rare at a particular place and time of year, with unusual characteristics in terms of magnitude, location, timing, or extent. These include extreme heatwaves, freezes, tornados, dust storms, hurricanes, flooding, drought, and more.

Fortunately, most of the world’s governments have committed to undertake more ambitious efforts to respond to the urgent threat of climate change while real-time tracking from weather satellites transmit more and clearer information about earth and water temperatures, cloud cover and both water and air flow.

It used to be said that we could do nothing about the weather. However, when we work together, learning through advances in meteorology how Earth’s systems work, we can better manage our planet’s resources and ourselves.

B Bondar