World Meteorological Organization
specialized agency of the United Nations for meteorology
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics.
The WMO originated from the International Meteorological Organization (IMO), a nongovernmental organization founded in 1873 as a forum for exchanging weather data and research. Proposals to reform the status and structure of the IMO culminated in the World Meteorological Convention of 1947, which formally established the World Meteorological Organization. The Convention entered into force on 23 March 1950, and the following year the WMO began operations as an intergovernmental organization within the United Nations System.
The WMO is made up of 193 countries and territories, and facilitates the "free and unrestricted" exchange of data, information, and research between the respective meteorological and hydrological institutions of its members. It also collaborates with nongovernmental partners and other international organizations on matters related to environmental protection, climate change, resource management, and socioeconomic development.
Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the WMO is governed by the World Meteorological Congress, composed of member states, which meets every four years to set policies and priorities. The Congress is led by an Executive Council led by the President, currently Abdulla Al Mandous of UAE.
History
Weather is a global phenomenon that ignores national borders. International cooperation on weather reporting began in the 1600s, but became a significant factor with the invention of the telegraph in 1843.
Matthew Fontaine Maury, of the US Navy, initiated the convening of the first true international meteorological conference from late August through early September 1853.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q170424. VIAF identifies the subject as 141399695. The Library of Congress control number is n79032054. 3 of 10 selected statements include explicit references; 7 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1873, 1947, 1950 and 1843.
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This entry incorporates text from “World Meteorological Organization” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.