PMC meeting now underway in Vanuatu Photo: SPREP
The Pacific Meteorological Council ("PMC") meeting this week in Vanuatu and brings together 26 meteorology directors from across the region.
Meteorology and climatology advisor for SPREP, Salesa Nihmei, said the meeting is a "health check" for meteorology in the region.
Salesa Nihmei spoke with RNZ Pacific's Moera Tuilaepa-Taylor about the meeting
Nihmei described climate change as an issue that everyone in the region was grappling with, particularly in the severe weather events that were manifestations of its process.
The Pacific Meteorological Council is meeting this week in Vanuatu Photo: SPREP
"These weather events create significant challenges to meteorology services (met services) in the region, as they struggle to help people prepare for them," he said.
"Vanuatu was an appropriate place for a meteorology meeting, as it had suffered greatly from severe tropical cycles.
"The meeting was an opportunity for smaller met services to find ways to work together and support each other, during severe weather," he said.
Nihmei credited support from development partners and technical agencies in improving technology for tracking cyclones, and tropical depressions that potentially could develop into cyclones.
He also explained that the PMC meeting was a vehicle to try and pool those resources and involved technical working groups for various topics such as: oceans, aviation, climate services, education training and communications.
The meeting was also about setting priorities and building capacity in both the short and long term.