National Council of Meteorology

The National Council of Meteorology is an entity that has the following responsibilities:

• Set the national policy in the field of meteorological activities.
• Approve, at the beginning of each fiscal year, the general plan of financing of the Institute.
• Appoint the General Director of the Institute in accordance with this law and the regulations issued.
• Meeting twice a year ordinarily and extraordinarily when the President of the Council to convene it.

This Council is composed of the following members:

• A representative of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
• The head of the Department of Basic Studies of the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity.
• A representative of the National Service of Aqueducts and Sewers.
• The Minister of Environment and Energy, who presides over the Council either the Director of the NMI in its representation.

General Director

General Director is selected by the National Council of Meteorology and has the following responsibilities:

• Directing the scientific, technical and administrative tasks of the Institute.
• Comply with and enforce the legal provisions in force, the dictated by the National Council of Meteorology and emanating from international commitments undertaken on behalf of the Government of Costa Rica.
• Prepare and submit to the National Council of Meteorology knowledge programs, as well as the annual report in the manner and time to be determined by the regulation. In addition, it is responsible for the management and application of the funds of the institution.
• Attend the sessions of the National Council of Meteorology.
• Officially representing the National Meteorological Institute.

• Email of  Mr. Werner Stolz España
• Phone: (506) 2222-5616 ext. 301

Administrative and Financial Department

It provides support to other technical areas, making it a fundamental organ for achieving organizational goals. It has the following areas of work:

Accounting (financial): Its primary function is the management of the institutional funds in a timely and efficient way.

Basic Services: Within this are supply, acquisition and property management services and general services. Its function is to provide the institution of the goods and services necessary for the efficient performance of technical function that performs. Among its tasks are maintenance and institutional inventory control, permanent supply of inputs required for the efficient exercise of technical work, maintenance of facilities, equipment and the maintenance and organization of the vehicle fleet.

Contact information:

• Email of Mr. Eduardo Oviedo Valerio
• Phone: (506) 2222-5616 ext. 111

Office of Human Resources

Its primary function is to provide an efficient and committed human resource, organization the work of the institution. Part of the functions of: recruitment, selection, training, induction, performance, labor relations, documentation and procedure such us: vacations, permits with or without pay, payroll, among others.

Contact information:

• Email of the Mr. Oscar Ramírez Rodríguez
• Phone: (506) 2222-5616 ext. 304

Legal advice office

Provide legal advice and legal permanent and comprehensive legal sponsorship, subject to law, about the acts and decisions issued by authorities and officials of the Instituto Meteorológico Nacional.  

Responsible for safeguarding and defense of institutional interests, by appropriate actions within the existing legal framework, to propose solutions of conflicts within the framework of competition. In addition, the attention of the procedures in legal matters
 

Contact information:

• Email of the Mr. Max Mena Rojas
• Phone: (506) 2222-5616 ext. 303

Press Office

It is the planning and implementation of communication strategies to meet the demands of the different public defined goals, according to the requirements of the NMI. As well as implement and propose permanent institutional communication policies that allow the exchange of information with the public, public and private, national and international institutions.

This Office coordinates the attendance of all the queries of journalists from different media, either through e-mail, phone calls or direct visits to the NMI.

Contact information:

• Email of Mr. comunicacion@minae.go.cr

Informatics Unit

This Unit has a great importance, given the work of the NMI. By having the NMI a very technical system to conduct all its processes and give continuity to the work carried out, it must have an special staff with availability of care and support to all the institutional staff, both for Headquarters and airports, so that availability includes every day of the year.

Through the internal network and interconnection with Internet, the NMI makes available to the public the products obtained, that includes the results of numerical models, satellite images, as well as the information that is made available to the centers of international forecasts such as the Hurricane Center in Miami, NOAA, among others, in order to make the local and regional forecasts, especially when extreme events such as hurricanes, tropical storms and other cyclonic events arise. As a result, the services provided by the Informatics Unit should be widely available, taking into account levels of contingency and operability.

The services provided by this unit have a local and international scope since the products obtained and supplied by servers that are administered, provide information and high-resolution images both to the NMI and different local or regional institutions.

Main functions of the Informatics Unit

• Coordinate the work pertaining to the administration and performance of servers and our network LAN, WAN, Intranet and Internet of the central offices of the NMI and featured in the different offices national and international airports, as well as services to different control towers of the airports.
• Organize and coordinate the role of assistance to various emergencies or computer eventualities arising with everything related to the meteorological information assigned to the different entities who need such information for their daily work or in emergencies.
• Perform recovery or reinstallation of programs, products or models necessary to the professional staff of the NMI perform their respective duties. This involves maintaining a provision, given that we are an entity of service many emergency agencies, news media, public in general, etc.
• Plan and implement policies of computer security for the institution.
• Develop projects of analysis, development and implementation of software for meteorological and administrative work.
• Maintain and update the NMI website.
• Support in data transmission and proper functioning of the meteorological stations network, programming machines located throughout the country.
• Manage the climatic database of the NMI, which have data for more than 100 years in some stations.

Weather network and data processing Department

It has under its jurisdiction the installation and maintenance of the mechanical and automatic weather stations of the Institute network. It is the National Centre for the collection, process, fingering, review and storage of meteorological data from the stations of the NMI. Through a continuous process, puts at the disposal of the users and decision makers, internal and external, all weather information which is recorded and stored in digital format in the database of the institution. It also ensures the proper functioning of the systems and data quality in the main airports of the country.

Contact information:

• Email of Ms. Martha Pereira Molina
• Phone: (506) 2222-5616 ext. 207

Department of Meteorology, Synoptic and Aeronautics

It carries out short, medium and long-term weather forecasts, as well as estimates of the behavior of the dry and rainy seasons. It carries out a marine forecast valid for the territorial waters of Costa Rica and provides weather-aeronautics, required information nationally and internationally, on all the airlines in the country.

It monitors the atmospheric and oceanic environment of Costa Rica, in order to detect and predict the development of atmospheric phenomena that have the potential of generating extreme hydrometeorological events, broadcast weather alert reports required by institutions of first response at the same time.

Contact information:

Email of Mr. Eladio Solano León
Phone: (506) 2222-5616 exts. 309, 310, 318

Department of Climatology and Applied Research

Its main functions are the planning, coordination, monitoring and development of projects, research and scientific studies of interest to the country, ranging from studies of variability and climate change, climate extremes, agrometeorology, hydrology, current and future climate scenarios, flood, weather, up to the El Niño phenomenon.

As part of its powers is the climate change program, in which there are studies of the national inventories of greenhouse gases, vulnerability and adaptation, climate variability and risk to climate change. These studies are part of the country reports to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), known as national communications. Previously designated studies allow a climate agenda consistent with Sustainable Development, the National Development Plan and the Millennium goals.

It has a system of geographic information (GIS) which allows you to perform the official Atlas of the different meteorological parameters, studies on the change of land use and the definition of areas of vegetation, as well as institutional payroll of weather stations and their distribution map of paths across the country.

Contact information:

Email of Mr. Ana Rita Chacón
Phone: (506) 2222-5616 ext. 201

Information Department

It is responsible for the service to the public in general, to which serves to provide the information generated at the Institute, whether this climate or from studies made by the institution. For this purpose, it has climatic summaries of weather stations that have at least five years of continuous record. These summaries consist of a report of the average values of the weather elements available to the station during its time of service. Both for active stations and those that have had to close over time. The information can be requested by email or personally.

For specific purposes, the Department of Information analyzes climate or weather conditions occurred at a certain moment on any particular region, but only if the region has weather stations nearby or representative to that region or place. Such studies can be delivered in two formats, certificates or certifications. They also perform weather characterizations of areas where they have information.

The NMI has information about output and sunsets of the Sun, as well as the phases of the Moon. Such information can be requested from this Department, via telephone, fax, e-mail or through the institutional Web page.

This Department has the responsibility of the coordination of the realization of talks that officials of the Institute give to technical and professional groups that need it, on various subjects within the meteorological field, as basic concepts of meteorology and climatology, weather forecast, greenhouse effect, global warming, climate change, vulnerability, adaptation and mitigation to climate change, ENOS (El Niño / La Niña), tropical cyclones (hurricanes), among others.

In the case of both primary and secondary students, offered talks on weather and climate, meteorological instruments, hydrometeorological disasters and climate change. In these cases, such talks are carried out in coordination with the Department of Environmental Education of the Simon Bolívar Zoo, and are carried out on Wednesday and Thursday morning, appointment, for groups of students who do not exceed 25.

Contact information:

Email of  Ms. Cristina Araya Villalobos
Phone: (506) 2222-5616 exts. 124, 123