The Commission of Basic Systems (CBS) of World Meteorological Organization (WMO) at its Twelfth Session at Geneva, 27 November - 8 December 2000 discussed the need to strengthen the recognition of the public weather services that NMHSs provide through the setting up of a pilot project.   The Commission agreed that a Collecting Center should be designated to collect weather forecasts supplied by participating NMHSs.  The Collecting Center would generate an integrated product of major city forecasts around the world and make it available for use by all WMO Members for dissemination to the public and the media.

A WMO-sponsored web site - WWIS is set up to display the weather information supplied by participating NMHSs.   The Commission agreed that Hong Kong, China, would take the lead in further developing the above concept and act as the Collecting Center.

By February 2005, four language versions emerged viz. English, Arabic, Chinese and Portuguese. At the CBS 13^th Session at St. Petersburg, 23 February - 3 March 2005, the Commission agreed to turn the pilot project into an operational component of the Public Weather Services Programme and that the current host Members, viz. China; Hong Kong, China; Macao, China; and Oman, would continue to maintain the Chinese, English, Portuguese and Arabic versions of the WWIS web site respectively. The Commission also designated Hong Kong, China to serve as the coordinator of WWIS operation in collaboration with other WMO Members.

In September 2006, Spain joined the other 4 hosts and launched the Spanish version for public access.