31st Conference on Broadcast Meteorology

Wednesday, 26 June 2002: 4:30 PM
American Forces Network Weather Center
Robert Matheson, American Forces Radio and Television Service, March ARB, CA; and D. M. Tirschel and R. T. Williams Jr.
Imagine doing the local morning and evening weather reports and the extended forecasts for almost 100 cities everyday. Then imagine those cities are in over 170 countries, from Uzbekistan and eastern Russia, to Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates. Gather data for your broadcasts from forecasters at some of those locations, and create forecasts for cities without forecasters, then generate all your own graphics, script the show, record your narration, and backhaul the finished programs to your network's uplink facility 1,500 miles away. Finally, imagine doing all that by yourself before you turn out the lights and go home. These tasks are done each day by a handful of military and civilian forecasters in the American Forces Network (AFN) Weather Center, in the Air Force Weather Agency, broadcasting to an audience of over 800,000 people worldwide.

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