The Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research (OFCM) and the U.S. Department of Transportation-Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) began a project to establish the national needs and requirements for weather information associated with the decision-making actions for surface transportation.

The data collection (elements and thresholds) and database development (data mining and analyses) over the past two years created a nationwide baseline of weather information. WIST details include time and distance scales, and more importantly, the relationship of the elements to the operational decisions and actions.

This paper will profile the WIST journey, cataloging four areas

· project initiation, · data survey/collection/analyses, · verification & validation, · recommendations/conclusions,

and present the results of the WIST project which culminated in a first-ever formal publication on weather support for surface transportation.