NIWA

NIWA's research vessel, RV Tangaroa, will head over on 9 April to collect video images of the seafloor and another vessel, from British enterprise SEA-KIT International, will conduct further mapping over a month.

NIWA chief scientist of oceans Mike Williams, who is the project leader, predicted they would see massive changes to the underwater landscape around Tonga.

In what has been a huge logistical exercise six months in the planning and another year in the implementation, Tonga now has 21 new weather stations and two sea level monitoring stations.

One of the problems faced by TMS was the difficulty in receiving manual weather observations from parts of the country where there were no staff.

TMS head Ofa Faanunu said that challenge with communication, particularly from the outer islands, meant forecasts were less accurate and had long needed updating.