Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
ese weather forecasting company, whose headquarters and global center are located in Mihama Ward,
Chiba City
is the capital city of Chiba Prefecture, Japan. It sits about east of the centre of Tokyo on Tokyo Bay. The city became a government-designated city in 1992. In March 2025, its population was 983,045, with a population density of 3,617 people ...
,
Chiba Prefecture
is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Chiba Prefecture has a population of 6,278,060 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Chiba Prefecture borders Ibaraki Prefecture to the north, Saitama ...
. WNI owns
Weathernews LiVE
(WNL) is a Japanese 24-hour live channel owned and operated by Weathernews Inc. (WNI), the largest privately owned weather company in the world. WNL started broadcasting 16 April 2018, replacing the original BS Weathernews/WX 24 and ''SOLiVE ...
, a 24/7 online live stream. With 1,152 employees as of 2024 WNI claims to be the largest privately-owned weather company in the world.
History
Hiroyoshi Ishibashi, who served as the representative director and president of the Japanese subsidiary of Ocean Routes (ORCJ), a marine meteorological research company headquartered in the United States, expanded the company's land and aviation divisions to 180 million yen with the cooperation of financial institutions. Established in 1986 using a management buy-out method, which was extremely rare at the time, to purchase the company for 10,000 yen (the number of employees at the time of establishment was approximately 40).
The background for its establishment was a maritime accident in January 1970 when a cargo ship sank due to a bomb cyclone that hit Onahama Port, killing 15 people. Because it was difficult to predict weather conditions and there was no weather information available for sailors, Ishibashi took this accident as an opportunity to improve weather information, saying, "If there was really useful weather information, this accident could have been prevented".
In addition to being a pioneer in the private comprehensive weather forecasting service in Japan, in 1993 it merged with its parent company, Ocean Routes, and became the world's largest private weather information company and multinational company.
Weathernews was founded in 1986, but including its predecessor ORCJ and its predecessor Pacific Weather Analysis Corporation (PWAC, founded in 1953). It has a history of 72 years (as of 2025). PWAC is a company that provides weather route information to ships sailing in the Pacific Ocean, and is the world's first private weather information company.『気象情報の提供で続伸するウェザーニューズ』 All About 25 March 2008
In April 1983 it started providing weather information to
Asahi Broadcasting
is a certified broadcasting holding company headquartered in Osaka, Japan. Until March 31, 2018, it was a unified radio and television broadcaster serving in the Kansai region.
On April 1, 2018, its radio and television broadcasting divisions ...
(currently Asahi Broadcasting Group Holdings) becoming the first weather service provider other than the Japan Weather Association (JWA) to provide weather forecasts to a broadcasting station. This included providing cloud images for television from Japan's first meteorological satellite
Himawari is the Japanese word for sunflower.
It may refer to:
Companies
*Himawari Theatre Group, located in Ebisunishi, Shibuya, Tokyo
People with the given name
*, Japanese women's basketball player
Fiction
*Himawari Kunogi (九軒ひまわり), a cha ...
.ウェザーニューズ 報道気象の歴史 �� 株式会社ウェザーニューズ] In October 1991 it provided the world's first weather forecast using entirely 3D CGI graphics to ''News Station'' (
TV Asahi
JOEX-DTV (channel 5), branded as , and better known as , is a Japanese television station serving the Kanto region as the flagship station of the All-Nippon News Network. It is owned-and-operated by the a subsidiary of , itself controlled by ...
). In 1993 it produced a program for
TV Tokyo
JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as is a Japanese television station that serves as the flagship of the TX Network.
On December 19, 2006, the
Nintendo Wii
The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, ...
released the "
Forecast Channel
The Wii system software is a set of updatable firmware versions and a software frontend on the Wii, a home video game console. Updates, which could be downloaded over the Internet or read from a game disc, allowed Nintendo to add additional fe ...
", which made use of Weathernews' website as its main content provider. By connecting to the internet via
WiiConnect24
WiiConnect24 is a discontinued feature of Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection for the Wii. It was first announced at Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in mid-2006 by Nintendo. It enabled the user to remain connected to the Internet while the console was ...
, the channel would show direct weather forecasts, the day's current temperature, and other information once the channel had started up. It would also show the current day's forecast and temperature as well on the Home Menu's channel preview. Since the discontinuation of WiiConnect2024 on June 28, 2013, the Forecast Channel cannot connect to Weathernews' servers, rendering the channel discontinued.
In 2009 WNI started SOLiVE24, an internet streaming mixing weather forecasts with some variety programming (with some technical involvement by
Fuji TV
JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as or , is a Japanese television station that serves the Kantō region as the flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network System (FNS). The station is owned-and- ...
for its launch), which evolved into
Weathernews LiVE
(WNL) is a Japanese 24-hour live channel owned and operated by Weathernews Inc. (WNI), the largest privately owned weather company in the world. WNL started broadcasting 16 April 2018, replacing the original BS Weathernews/WX 24 and ''SOLiVE ...
, a more straight-forward weather service with some entertainment segments, in 2018. Also in 2009 WNI launched their own mobile app, initially named "Weathernews Touch" for
iOS
Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...
; the app would be renamed "Weathernews" in 2019, available for both iOS and
Android
Android most commonly refers to:
*Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human
* Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google
* Android TV, a operating system developed ...
; the WNI app's main competitors include JWA's tenki.jp,
Yahoo! Japan
is a Japanese web portal. It was the most-visited website in Japan, nearing monopolistic status.
According to ''The Japan Times'', as of 2012, Yahoo! Japan had a footprint on the internet market in Japan. In terms of use as a search engine, ...
's own weather app and
NHK
, also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee.
NHK ope ...
's News and Disaster Preparedness app.
Global presence
Besides the global centre in Chiba (Japan), WNI maintains service centres in Oklahoma (United States), Copenhagen (Denmark), Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Paris (France), and operating centres in Manila (Philippines) and Yangon (Myanmar). It also keeps sales and marketing offices in the aforementioned locations plus Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Hanoi, Singapore, Jakarta, Kathmandu, New Delhi, Kuala Lumpur, London, Athens, Milan, New York and São Paulo.
See also
*
Weathernews LiVE
(WNL) is a Japanese 24-hour live channel owned and operated by Weathernews Inc. (WNI), the largest privately owned weather company in the world. WNL started broadcasting 16 April 2018, replacing the original BS Weathernews/WX 24 and ''SOLiVE ...
, a 24/7 online live stream owned and operated by WNI since 2018 (replacing SOLiVE24, which aired since 2009) available worldwide