The Bermuda Weather Service (BWS) is operated by BAS-Serco Ltd., a joint venture between the local company, Bermuda Aviation Services (BAS) and the international outsourcing company, Serco, under a contract with the Department of Airport Operations, Ministry of Transport and Tourism.

The BWS has evolved substantially since its inception in 1995, following the departure of the US Navy, which previously provided a skeleton meteorological service for the Island, in addition to their own operational requirements at the former Kindley Field US Naval Air Station airfield, now known as the L. F. Wade International Airport. The BWS is officially recognized as the island's National Meteorological and Hydrological Service, providing public, marine, tropical and aviation weather forecasts, warnings and climatolological services.

The BWS Director manages the service along with the Deputy Director, a Senior Technician and a Systems Administrator. The 24-hour operational weather service has a staff comprising of five Meteorologists (Forecasters) and five Meteorological Technicians (Observers). All our training and certification is carried out in close coordination with the Met Office, UK. The US National Weather Service and the United Nations World Meteorological Organisation provide additional specialist forecaster training at the National Hurricane Center in Miami Florida.

The BWS supplies weather information to the media, two local weather-dedicated TV channels and a variety of marine users, including the many visiting yachts. Bermuda Maritime Operations Centre staff relay our forecasts on Marine VHF radio, weather channel 2. The BWS works in close liaison with Bermuda's Emergency Measures Organisation and the US National Hurricane Center. The BWS also operates a comprehensive web site www.weather.bm which is extremely popular with both local residents and visitors. To promote awareness about weather phenomena, BWS hosts tours and endeavours to educate the community by means of public presentations.

Operational staff at the BWS gather information from a variety of sources. International weather observations, bulletins and World Area Forecast System products are obtained via the NWS Washington International Satellite Communication System and also via the Internet. Due to the sparseness of marine observations from the surrounding ocean, forecasters in Bermuda have to place much reliance on the various numerical weather prediction models, imagery and other products from geostationary and orbiting weather satellites. Computer model data and observations are processed and displayed on Horace workstations, supported by the UK Met. Office. Observers take surface observations at least every hour, provide synoptic summary observations every few hours and release a weather balloon for radiosonde observations twice a day.

One of the newest additions to the suite of equipment currently used by the BWS is an S-Band Doppler radar system, which was commissioned in August 2005. This system facilitates the improved tracking and prediction of weather systems, including hurricanes and winter storms. In addition to the new radar, automated weather observing systems have been installed at various locations throughout Bermuda, and have also been providing valuable data since August 2005. Imagery from the new radar and AWOS data are available through the BWS website, www.weather.bm.