Fiji Meteorological Service

The Fiji Meteorological Service (FMS) is a Department of the government of Fiji responsible for providing weather forecasts and is based in Nadi. The current director of Fiji Meteorological Service is Alipate Waqaicelua. Since 1985, FMS has been responsible for naming and tracking tropical cyclones in the Southwest Pacific region. Current Meteorologists working at FMS have a Graduate Diploma in Meteorology from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

History

In the 1910s, weather services for Fiji were considered part of the responsibility of the Harbour Board in Suva.

Role of Fiji Meteorological Services

1997–98 South Pacific cyclone season

The 1997–98 South Pacific cyclone season was one of the most active and longest South Pacific tropical cyclone seasons on record, with 16 tropical cyclones occurring within the South Pacific basin between 160°E and 120°W. The season started earlier than normal with 3 systems developing before the official start of the season on November 1, 1997, while the final system of the season dissipated on May 3, 1998, after the season had officially ended on April 30. During the season 50 people died as a result of tropical cyclones, with the deadliest being Cyclone Martin with 27 known deaths. The strongest tropical cyclones during the season were Cyclone Ron and Cyclone Susan as both were estimated to have minimum pressures of 900 hPa (26.58 inHg), and were the most intense tropical cyclones on record in the South Pacific Ocean until Cyclone Zoe in 2002–03. After the season ended, 11 names had their names either removed or retired from the lists of names, after they caused significant impacts to South Pacific islands.

Cyclone Pam

Severe Tropical Cyclone Pam of 2015 was the most intense tropical cyclone in the southern hemisphere in 2015 and regarded as one of the worst natural disasters in the history of Vanuatu. A total of 15–16 people lost their lives either directly or indirectly as a result of Pam with many others injured. The storm's impacts were also felt, albeit to a lesser extent, to other islands in the South Pacific, most notably the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and New Zealand. Pam is the second most intense storm of the South Pacific Ocean according to pressure, after Zoe of 2002; Pam is also the third most intense storm in the Southern Hemisphere by the same metric, only after Zoe of 2002 and Gafilo in 2004. In addition, Pam had the highest 10-minute sustained wind speed of any South Pacific tropical cyclone; it is tied with Cyclone Orson and Cyclone Monica for having the strongest winds of any cyclone in the Southern Hemisphere. The Christian Children's Fund of Canada reported that wind gusts reached as high as 320 km/h, and thousands of homes, schools and buildings were damaged or destroyed, with an estimated 3,300 people displaced as a result.

Tropical cyclone

A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain. Depending on its location and strength, a tropical cyclone is referred to by names such as hurricane (/ˈhʌrᵻkən/ or /ˈhʌrᵻkeɪn/), typhoon /taɪˈfuːn/, tropical storm, cyclonic storm, tropical depression, and simply cyclone.

Tropical cyclones typically form over large bodies of relatively warm water. They derive their energy through the evaporation of water from the ocean surface, which ultimately recondenses into clouds and rain when moist air rises and cools to saturation. This energy source differs from that of mid-latitude cyclonic storms, such as nor'easters and European windstorms, which are fueled primarily by horizontal temperature contrasts. The strong rotating winds of a tropical cyclone are a result of the conservation of angular momentum imparted by the Earth's rotation as air flows inwards toward the axis of rotation. As a result, they rarely form within 5° of the equator. Tropical cyclones are typically between 100 and 2,000 km (62 and 1,243 mi) in diameter.

Fiji

Fiji (ⁱ/ˈfiːdʒiː/ FEE-jee Fijian: Viti; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी), officially the Republic of Fiji (Fijian: Matanitu Tugalala o Viti;Fiji Hindi: रिपब्लिक ऑफ फीजीFiji Hindi: Ripablik ăph Phījī), is an island country in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about 1,100 nautical miles (2,000 km; 1,300 mi) northeast of New Zealand's North Island. Its closest neighbours are Vanuatu to the west, New Caledonia to the southwest, New Zealand's Kermadec Islands to the southeast, Tonga to the east, the Samoas and France's Wallis and Futuna to the northeast, and Tuvalu to the north.

Fiji is an archipelago of more than 332 islands, of which 110 are permanently inhabited, and more than 500 islets, amounting to a total land area of about 18,300 square kilometres (7,100 sq mi). The farthest island is Ono-i-Lau. The two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, account for 87% of the population of almost 860,000. The capital and largest city, Suva, is on Viti Levu. About three-quarters of Fijians live on Viti Levu's coasts, either in Suva or in smaller urban centres like Nadi (tourism) or Lautoka (sugar cane industry). Viti Levu's interior is sparsely inhabited due to its terrain.