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.
