Editing National Weather Service (section)

==History==
[[File:2016-05-09 17 24 44 National Weather Service headquarters on East-West Highway (Maryland State Route 410) in Silver Spring, Montgomery County, Maryland.jpg|thumb|right|NWS HQ in [[Silver Spring, Maryland]]]]
===1870–1899===
Early attempts to record weather information can be traced back to [[Joseph Henry]] of the [[Smithsonian Institution]], who, after a tornado in Jefferson, Illinois (modern-day [[Des Plaines, Illinois]]) in 1855, wrote to the ''Daily Democratic Press'' in Chicago for more information about the storm. Organized large-scale weather recording by the Smithsonian led to the creation of the U.S. Signal Service, the earliest predecessor of the modern-day National Weather Service.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/5b048ba7ede74e61bf265e91001f4e1a?fbclid=IwAR1P9o1DUlvFg53b_T2gb45CLB8yzKvWMei5IlcrOyW0vzIseg6qmTIkBAY |title=Des Plaines Tornado of May 22, 1855 |date=20 October 2022 |access-date=7 April 2025 |publisher=[[National Weather Service Chicago, Illinois]] and Des Plaines History Center }}</ref> In 1869, [[Cleveland Abbe]], then director of the [[Cincinnati Observatory]], began developing and issuing public weather forecasts (which he called "probabilities") using daily weather observations collected simultaneously and sent via telegraph by a network of observers. This effort was undertaken in cooperation with the [[Cincinnati]] Chamber of Commerce and [[Western Union]], which he convinced to back the collection of such information. Meanwhile, [[Increase A. Lapham]] of Wisconsin lobbied [[United States Congress|Congress]] to create a storm warning service, having witnessed the destructive power of storms in the [[Great Lakes]] region.<ref>Moore, Willis L. [https://archive.org/stream/nationalgeograph81897nati#page/66/mode/2up Storms and Weather Forecasts]. ''The National Geographic Magazine'', v. 8, n. 3, March 1897, p. 67.</ref> Representative [[Halbert E. Paine]] introduced a bill authorizing the secretary of war to establish such a service. On February 9, 1870, the first official weather service of the United States was established through a [[joint resolution]] of Congress signed by President [[Ulysses S. Grant]]<ref name="nwshistory1">{{cite web|title=NWS History|url=https://www.weather.gov/timeline/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240528162801/https://www.weather.gov/timeline|archive-date=May 28, 2024|access-date=June 27, 2024|publisher=National Weather Service}}</ref> with a mission to "provide for taking meteorological observations at the military stations in the interior of the continent and at other points in the States and Territories... and for giving notice on the northern [[Great Lakes|(Great) Lakes]] and on the seacoast by magnetic [[telegraph]] and marine signals, of the approach and force of storms." The agency was placed under the [[United States Secretary of War|secretary of war]] as Congress felt "military discipline would probably secure the greatest promptness, regularity, and accuracy in the required observations."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Foster |first1=Alyson |title=In the Nineteenth Century, Scientists Set Out to Solve the "Problem of American Storms" |journal=Humanities |date=Fall 2023 |volume=44 |issue=4 |url=https://www.neh.gov/article/storm-patrol |access-date=14 December 2023 |publisher=National Endowment for the Humanities}}</ref> Within the [[United States Department of War|Department of War]], it was assigned to the [[U.S. Army Signal Corps|U.S. Army Signal Service]] under the [[Chief Signal Officer of the United States Army|chief signal officer]], Brigadier General [[Albert J. Myer]]. Myer gave the National Weather Service its first name: The Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce.<ref name="ScanningSkies">{{cite book|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/scanningskieshis0000brad/page/34|title=Scanning the Skies: A History of Tornado Forecasting|author=Bradford|first=Marlene|publisher=[[University of Oklahoma Press]]|year=2001|isbn=978-0-8061-3302-7|page=[https://archive.org/details/scanningskieshis0000brad/page/34 34]|chapter=Tornado Forecasting to 1940|lccn=00059979}}</ref>

In November 1870, Myer hired Lapham as the first civilian assistant to the new service, but Lapham left less than two years later. Abbe joined as the second civilian assistant to Myer in January 1871 and began developing a system for national forecasts, based on his work in Cincinnati, which he began issuing the following month.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Potter |first=Sean |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/1122799240 |title=Too Near for Dreams: The Story of Cleveland Abbe, America's First Weather Forecaster |date=2020 |publisher=American Meteorological Society |isbn=978-1-944970-56-7 |location=Boston, Massachusetts |oclc=on1122799240}}</ref> Throughout his career with the weather service, which lasted 45 years, Abbe urged continued research in [[meteorology]] to provide a scientific basis for forecasting.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=AMS ad hoc Committee—Abbe Report |url=https://www.ametsoc.org/AbbeReport |journal=Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society |volume=103 |issue=4 |pages=306–309}}</ref> While a debate went on between the Signal Service and Congress over whether the forecasting of weather conditions should be handled by civilian agencies or the Signal Service's existing forecast office, a Congressional committee was formed to oversee the matter, recommending that the office's operations be transferred to the Department of War following a two-year investigation.<ref name="stormwarning1">{{cite book|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/stormwarningstor00math/page/46|title=Storm Warning: The Story of a Killer Tornado|author=Mathis|first=Nancy|publisher=[[Simon & Schuster|Touchstone]]|year=2007|isbn=978-0-7432-8053-2|pages=[https://archive.org/details/stormwarningstor00math/page/46 46–50]|chapter=A Tornado Forecast|lccn=2006051237}}</ref>

The agency first became a civilian enterprise in 1891, when it became part of the [[United States Department of Agriculture|Department of Agriculture]] and its name officially became the U.S. Weather Bureau. Under the oversight of that branch, the Bureau began issuing flood warnings and fire weather forecasts, and issued the first daily national surface weather maps; it also established a network to distribute warnings for [[tropical cyclone]]s as well as a data exchange service that relayed European weather analysis to the Bureau and vice versa.<ref name="stormwarning2">{{cite book|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/stormwarningstor00math/page/51|title=Storm Warning: The Story of a Killer Tornado|author=Mathis|first=Nancy|publisher=Touchstone|year=2007|isbn=978-0-7432-8053-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/stormwarningstor00math/page/51 51]|chapter=A Tornado Forecast|lccn=2006051237}}</ref>

===20th century===
The first Weather Bureau [[radiosonde]] was launched in [[Massachusetts]] in 1937, which prompted a switch from routine aircraft observation to radiosondes within two years. The Bureau prohibited the word "[[tornado]]" from being used in any of its weather products out of concern for inciting panic (a move contradicted in its intentions by the high death tolls in past tornado outbreaks due to the lack of advanced warning) until 1938, when it began disseminating tornado warnings exclusively to [[emergency management]] personnel.<ref name="stormwarning3">{{cite book|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/stormwarningstor00math/page/47|title=Storm Warning: The Story of a Killer Tornado|author=Mathis|first=Nancy|publisher=Touchstone|year=2007|isbn=978-0-7432-8053-2|pages=[https://archive.org/details/stormwarningstor00math/page/47 47–53]|chapter=A Tornado Forecast|lccn=2006051237}}</ref>

The Bureau would in 1940 be moved to the [[United States Department of Commerce|Department of Commerce]].<ref name="AviationWS">{{cite book|title=Aviation Weather Services: A Call For Federal Leadership and Action|author=[[United States National Research Council]]|publisher=[[National Academies Press]]|year=1995|isbn=978-0-309-05380-8|page=18|chapter=Current Roles and Missions|doi=10.17226/5037|hdl=2027/ien.35556021395504|lccn=95072006}}</ref> In 1941, Margaret Smagorinsky (née Knoepfel) was hired as the Weather Bureau's first female statistician.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Obituary of Margaret Smagorinsky {{!}} The Mather-Hodge Funeral Home |url=https://matherhodge.com/tribute/details/96/Margaret-Smagorinsky/obituary.html |access-date=2022-08-18 |website=matherhodge.com |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Transcript of Oral History Interview of Margaret Smagorinsky - American Meteorological Society Oral History Project |url=https://opensky.ucar.edu/islandora/object/archives%3A7644}}</ref> On July 12, 1950, Bureau chief [[Francis Reichelderfer|Francis W. Reichelderfer]] officially lifted the agency's ban on public tornado alerts in a Circular Letter, noting to all first order stations that "Weather Bureau employees should avoid statements that can be interpreted as a negation of the Bureau's willingness or ability to make tornado forecasts", and that a "good probability of verification" exist when issuing such forecasts due to the difficulty in accurately predicting tornadic activity.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/#Forecasting|title=The Online Tornado FAQ|author=Edwards|first=Roger|author-link=Roger Edwards (meteorologist)|publisher=[[Storm Prediction Center]]|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180326103341/https://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/#Forecasting|archive-date=March 26, 2018|access-date=July 6, 2009}}</ref> However, it would not be until it faced criticism for continuing to refuse to provide public tornado warnings and preventing the release of the [[United States Air Force|USAF]] Severe Weather Warning Center's tornado forecasts (pioneered in 1948 by Air Force Capt. [[Robert C. Miller]] and Major Ernest Fawbush) beyond military personnel that the Bureau issued its first experimental public tornado forecasts in March 1952.<ref name="stormwarning3"/> In 1957, the Bureau began using [[radar]]s for short-term forecasting of local storms and hydrological events, using modified versions of those used by [[United States Navy|Navy]] aircraft to create the [[WSR-57]] (<u>W</u>eather <u>S</u>urveillance <u>R</u>adar, 19<u>57</u>), with a network of WSR systems being deployed nationwide through the early 1960s;<ref name="stormwarning4">{{cite book|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/stormwarningstor00math/page/86|title=Storm Warning: The Story of a Killer Tornado|author=Mathis|first=Nancy|publisher=Touchstone|year=2007|isbn=978-0-7432-8053-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/stormwarningstor00math/page/86 86]|chapter=Priority One|lccn=2006051237}}</ref> some of the radars were upgraded to [[WSR-74]] models beginning in 1974.<ref>{{Cite web |last=US Department of Commerce |first=NOAA |title=Radar |url=https://www.weather.gov/about/radar |access-date=2023-10-19 |website=www.weather.gov |language=EN-US}}</ref>

In August 1966, the Weather Bureau became part of the [[Environmental Science Services Administration]] when that agency was formed. The Environmental Science Services Administration was renamed the [[National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]] (NOAA) on October 1, 1970, with the enactment of the [[National Environmental Policy Act]]. At this time, the Weather Bureau became the National Weather Service.<ref name=nwshistory1/> 
At the beginning of the 1980s the NWS used the same radar equipment as in the 1950s, and [[teletype]] for communication. In 1983,  NOAA administrator [[John V. Byrne]] proposed to auction off all of the weather satellites, to repurchase data from private buyers, outsourcing weather observation stations, NOAA Weather Radio and computerized surface analysis to private companies but the proposal failed in a Congressional vote.<ref name="autogenerated1"/>

[[NEXRAD]] (Next Generation Radar), a system of [[Pulse-Doppler radar|Doppler radars]] deployed to improve the detection and warning time of severe local storms, replaced the WSR-57 and WSR-74 systems between 1988 and 1997.<ref name="wsr-88d">{{cite journal|author=Crum|first1=Timothy D.|last2=Alberty|first2=Ron L.|date=September 1993|title=The WSR-88D and the WSR-88D Operational Support Facility|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1234705|journal=[[Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society]]|volume=74|issue=9|pages=1669–87|bibcode=1993BAMS...74.1669C|doi=10.1175/1520-0477(1993)074<1669:twatwo>2.0.co;2|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="stormwarning5">{{cite book|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/stormwarningstor00math/page/92|title=Storm Warning: The Story of a Killer Tornado|author=Mathis|first=Nancy|publisher=Touchstone|year=2007|isbn=978-0-7432-8053-2|pages=[https://archive.org/details/stormwarningstor00math/page/92 92–94]|chapter=Priority One|lccn=2006051237}}</ref>

===21st century===
In 2025, the National Weather Service was deeply affected by cuts to [[NOAA under the second presidency of Donald Trump]], including staff being laid off, contracts with universities being cancelled, and restrictions on exchanges with other national weather services.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Holthaus |first1=Eric |title=Inside the 'slow-rolling catastrophe' of Trump's NOAA cuts |url=https://www.fastcompany.com/91291167/inside-the-slow-rolling-catastrophe-of-trumps-noaa-cuts |website=[[Fast Company]] |access-date=6 March 2025 |date=5 March 2025}}</ref><ref name="BBCFeb28">{{cite web |last1=Mackintosh |first1=Thomas |title=Hundreds in US climate agency fired in latest cuts |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdell8n14x2o |publisher=BBC |access-date=1 March 2025 |date=28 February 2025}}</ref><ref name="TWPMarch1">{{cite web |last1=Dance |first1=Scott |last2=Patel |first2=Kasha |title=Trump fired hundreds at NOAA, Weather Service. Here's what that means for forecasts. |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/03/01/trump-firings-noaa-nws-weather-forecast-impacts/ |website=[[The Washington Post]] |access-date=1 March 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250301223204/https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/03/01/trump-firings-noaa-nws-weather-forecast-impacts/ |archive-date=1 March 2025 |date=1 March 2025 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Budryk |first=Zack |date=February 27, 2025 |title=NOAA begins firing hundreds of staffers |url=https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5167978-noaa-firings-probationary-workers-doge/ |access-date=February 27, 2025 |website=The Hill}}</ref><ref name="Axios">{{cite web |last1=Freedman |first1=Andrew |title=NOAA layoffs threaten weather, climate forecasts |url=https://www.axios.com/2025/02/28/noaa-layoffs-threaten-weather-climate-forecasts |website=[[Axios (website)|Axios]] |access-date=1 March 2025 |date=28 February 2025}}</ref> Entering [[Atlantic hurricane season|hurricane season]], 30 National Weather Service offices are without a chief meteorologist, in part due to Trump administration layoffs.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Freedman |first=Andrew |date=2025-05-02 |title=US weather forecasting is more crippled than previously thought as hurricane season nears |url=https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/02/weather/nws-forecasting-layoffs-trump |access-date=2025-05-18 |website=CNN |language=en}}</ref>