Himawari-8 – a new generation geostationary meteorological satellite of the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has started its operation in July 2015 and observes East Asia and the Western Pacific. The imagery data derived from Himawari-8 is distributed to users via an Internet cloud service and a communication satellite (HimawariCast). The most valuable function of meteorological satellites is their ability to monitor atmospheric phenomena globally and uniformly over various areas such as seas, deserts and mountains where surface-based observation is difficult. Himawari-8 enhances meteorological services by National Hydrological and Meteorological Services (NMHSs) in the region in a variety of fields such as weather forecasting, climate monitoring, disaster risk reduction and safe transportation. To enable countries in the East Asia and West Pacific region to receive and process Himawari-8 data and imagery received through HimawariCast for various purposes, especially for disaster risk reduction, JMA has provided funding to WMO to implement a project for providing data/imagery reception and processing equipment as well as skills and competency development for nine NMHSs: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Federated States of Micronesia, Myanmar, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Tuvalu and Viet Nam.
