Vanuatu achieves a milestone in climate resilience with its first weather radar system

Prime Minister of Vanuatu, Charlot Salwai, in the Groundbreaking Ceremony.
Photo credit: SPREP

The island nation of Vanuatu faces more cyclones than any other in the Southwest Pacific region and is the world's most vulnerable to natural disasters. To meet this challenge, Vanuatu has taken a monumental step towards enhanced climate resilience by purchasing the country’s first weather radar system.

The Groundbreaking Ceremony for the system took place in July 2024 — on the eve of Vanuatu’s 44th anniversary of independence. Vanuatu will soon join the ranks of Australia, Fiji, New Caledonia and New Zealand as one of the few countries in the region with weather radar capabilities.

"The weather radar is not only timely, but also essential for our ongoing commitment to build the resilience of our people through early warnings and disaster preparedness," says Charlot Salwai, the Prime Minister of Vanuatu, who joined the celebrations to officiate the groundbreaking.

Advanced instruments and insights for weather resilience

Based on state-of-the-art Vaisala weather radar and remote sensing software technology, the solution will offer timely and precise weather information to enhance Vanuatu’s early warning services and enable effective monitoring of severe weather events.

The system includes the Vaisala Weather Radar WRM200, a dual-polarization C-band radar that uses a magnetron transmitter. WRM200 is an accurate and reliable weather radar that easily distinguishes between precipitation types as well as non-meteorological targets, and is cost-efficient with low maintenance needs.

Vaisala IRIS Focus remote sensing software provides a comprehensive view and alerts to help better understand weather hazards such as storms, windshear, precipitation and more. This will empower Vanuatu with earlier extreme weather and storm predictions and analyses, and more accurate precipitation classification which will enable quicker decision-making.

"I look forward to seeing this new technology making a difference and trust that it will contribute to minimizing the losses to our GDP, and to the livelihood of our community caused by severe weather events," says Mr. Salwai, the Prime Minister of Vanuatu.

The Vanuatu Meteorology and Geohazards Department (VMGD) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) are implementing the system, funded by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) through the Vanuatu Klaemet Infomesen blong Redy, Adapt mo Protekt /Climate Information Services for Resilient Development Planning in Vanuatu project (Van-KIRAP).

The installation will take place in Port Vila in 2025, and Vanuatu weather professionals will begin training at Vaisala headquarters in Finland in early 2025.

Developing capability for now and the future

In addition to timely and accurate severe weather preparedness, Vanuatu will be using the weather radar system to collect long-term data for identifying weather trends and understanding how the climate is changing over time.

"The data trends will reveal how evolving weather patterns will affect different regions of the country — crucial for effective climate adaptation planning," says Sefanaia Nawadra, Director General for SPREP.

"We at Vaisala are privileged to collaborate on the weather radar initiative with the Vanuatu Meteorology and Geohazards Department (VMGD) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). We are confident that the results of this project will not only enhance the operational capabilities and capacities of VMGD but also lead to substantial climate resilience advantages for the communities across Vanuatu," says Robert Ireland, Sales Director, Vaisala.

Learn more about Vaisala weather radars and our commitment to delivering uncompromising weather instruments and insights to the meteorological community.