Editing National Weather Service (section)

===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>