WMO (World Meteorological Organization)

The World Meteorological Organization, WMO, is the United Nations specialized agency for weather, climate, and water, the body that sets the international standards for meteorological and marine observations, codes, and forecast services. For the mariner it standardizes the Beaufort scale, the format of the weather observations a ship logs and transmits, and the Marine Meteorological Services that deliver forecasts and warnings at sea. WMO and the IMO together run the Worldwide Met-Ocean Information and Warning Service, dividing the oceans into METAREAs each with a country responsible for high-seas forecasts and warnings broadcast through the GMDSS under SOLAS Chapter V. The Voluntary Observing Ships scheme, which gathers the surface marine data, also runs under its framework.