Organization - Japan Meteorological Agency

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Organization

Building of Headquarters

JMA is comprised of Headquarters, District/Marine/Local Obserbatories and Weather Stations, and Auxiliary Facilities. All JMA services are conducted with a total staff of about 6,000 and budgetary resources of 72.8 billion Yen per year, as of 2003FY.

JMA Headquarters serves as both the administrative and operational headquarters of the Agency. It is comprised of a Director-General, a Deputy Director-General and five Departments; the Administration, Forecast, Observations, Seismological and Volcanological, and Climate and Marine Departments.

To carry out a wide range of services for local communities, JMA operates a number of observatries and weather stations across the country. Sapporo, Sendai, Tokyo, Osaka, and Fukuoka District Meteorological Observatories (DMOs) and the Okinawa Meteorological Observatory serves as regional central offices to direct 47 Local Meteorological Observatories (LMOs) which provide information services in prefectures and sub-prefectures, as well as 56 weather stations which are dedicated to observations.
JMA also provides services for various sectors of the economy. Four Aviation Weather Service Centers (AWSCs), 9 aviation weather stations, and 49 airport branches have been established for aviation meteorological services. Four Marine Observations in Hakodate, Kobe, Nagasaki, and Maizuru offer marine meteorological and oceanographic services.

Organizational Structure of JMA

Auxiliary Organs

More about Headquarters

JMA has six regional administrative offices (five District Meteorological Observatories (DMOs) and the Okinawa Meteorological Observatory), four Marine Observatories, five auxillary facilities, three Aviation Weather Services Centers and 47 Local Meteorological Obserbatories (LMOs).
These positions are depicted to right picture.

The Meteorological Research Institute (MRI) is a JMA research facility. There are nine research departments covering earth siences.
The Meteorological Satellite Center (MSC) operates a Japanese geostationary meteorological satellite to carry out earth obserbations.
As specialized upper-air observatory, the Aerological Observatory performs obserbations of the upper atmoshere using captive balloons, radiosondes and other instruments.
The Magnetic Observatory monitors the electromagnetic conditions originating in and around the earth.
The Meteorological College is a training institute of JMA that offers a four year college course and various training programs to JMA staffs.