National meteorological service or National Meteorological and Hydrological Service (NMHS) is a type of government agency in charge of each country's meteorological or hydrological matters, especially on missions like weather observation, data collection and monitoring, forecasting, and issuing warnings and alerts for natural hazards like floods and storms. This type of agencies may share names like Meteorological Administration, Meteorological Agency, Meteorological Service, Weather Bureau, or Weather Service.
As meteorological services usually have tendency of becoming a natural monopoly, almost all of national meteorological services were launched by state-led public institution, funded exclusively by government. However, the trend has changed in late 20th century, as more and more governments were trying to push national meteorological service to cut the cost and raise own revenue. It created serious worries in World Meteorological Organization, an international association of national meteorological services.[1] Change of global trend resulted wide variation in operating models of each country's national meteorological service, such as small division unit inside executive department or ministry, independent government agency, public body, state-owned enterprise, and privatized enterprise.[2] Varied status of each nation's meteorological service created some confusion in development of climate services.[3]
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