The
National Weather Service
The National Weather Service (NWS) is an Government agency, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weathe ...
operates 122 weather forecast offices in six regions. Each weather forecast office (WFO or NWSFO) has a geographic area of responsibility, also known as a
county warning area, for issuing local public, marine, aviation, fire, and
hydrology
Hydrology () is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and environmental watershed sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is calle ...
forecasts. They also issue
severe weather
Severe weather is any dangerous meteorological phenomenon with the potential to cause damage, serious social disruption, or loss of human life. Types of severe weather phenomena vary, depending on the latitude, altitude, topography, and atm ...
warnings, gather
weather observation
Weather reconnaissance is the acquisition of weather data used for research and planning. Typically the term reconnaissance refers to observing weather from the air, as opposed to the ground.
Methods
Aircraft
Helicopters are not built to w ...
s, and daily and monthly
climate
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologic ...
data for their assigned area. The local weather forecast offices also control the broadcasts of weather information on the
NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards
NOAA Weather Radio NWR; also known as NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards is an automated 24-hour network of VHF FM weather radio stations in the United States (U.S.) that broadcast weather information directly from a nearby National Weather Serv ...
stations.
History
Prior to the NWS reorganization in the 1990s, each state and territory had its own forecast office — with the exception of northern and southern California; north, south, and west Texas; and upper and lower
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
. Local offices (NWSOs) then each maintained their own county warning area, and the official hourly and daily readings at the
weather station
A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasts and to study the weather and climate. The measurements taken include tempera ...
where they were located, typically at a
regional airport in a smaller city.
During the reorganization, many of these became forecast offices, while most were closed in favor of cheaper
automatic weather station
An automatic weather station (AWS) is an automated version of the traditional weather station, either to save human labour or to enable measurements from remote areas. An AWS will typically consist of a weather-proof enclosure containing the data ...
s like
AWOS
Airport weather stations are automated sensor suites which are designed to serve aviation and meteorological operations, weather forecasting and climatology. Automated airport weather stations have become part of the backbone of weather observing ...
and
ASOS
ASOS or Asos may refer to:
* Asos, a village in Greece
* ASOS (retailer), a UK online fashion store
* Association Sportive Oussou Saka, a Beninese football team
* Automated Surface Observing System, a type of weather station
* Air Support Operat ...
. Since then, many offices and
weather radar
Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar (WSR) and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type (rain, snow, hail etc.). Modern weather radars are mostly puls ...
s have moved to separate non-airport locations, where they are assigned new
location identifier
A location identifier is a symbolic representation for the name and the location of an airport, navigation aid, or weather station, and is used for staffed air traffic control facilities in air traffic control, telecommunications, computer programm ...
s, such as
EYW/KEYW to KEY/KKEY for NWSFO
Key West
Key West ( es, Cayo Hueso) is an island in the Straits of Florida, within the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it cons ...
, and
BHM/KBHM to BMX/KBMX for
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
radar.
Forecast offices
Alaska Region
Central Region
Eastern Region
Pacific Region
Southern Region
Western Region
An interactive map of all regions with links to individual WFOs can be found here: https://www.weather.gov/srh/nwsoffices
References
{{List of National Weather Service Weather Forecast Offices
National Weather Service
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