National Weather Service: Looking Back 30 Years and Looking to the Future

Thirty years ago, Richard M. Nixon created the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Weather Service's (NWS) parent agency, to provide critical information "...for better protection of life and property from natural hazards..." During the past thirty years the NWS has introduced into its operations real-time weather animations from both radars and weather satellites. Recently the National Weather Service completed its 10-year, $4.5 Billion Modernization Program. The NWS forecast and warning performance has steadily improved, resulting in Americans expecting more accurate and timely forecasts and warnings. The NWS continues to introduce new products and services in areas such as climate, aviation and flooding. The Internet is changing the weather business, making weather information such as radar products, once available only to experts, now widely accessible. The NWS partnership with the private sector continues to grow stronger every year. Weather is big business: one-seventh of our economy, $1 Trillion a year, is weather sensitive. The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City is giving the public/private partnership an opportunity to work as a team. Our challenge, as a weather community, is to balance the government's responsibilities to warn the public and provide forecasts to everyone with the private sector's responsibilities to provide specialized weather services to specific customers. It is more important than ever to have a united weather community providing the best weather services in the world.