Tracking the Weather

Winter wheat or spring wheat this growing season? February calves or March at this location? March foals or just wait for June? Is it too windy to spray? Too wet to seed? Or too dry to keep the herd on this pasture? Paperwork or outside work tomorrow? How much feed and bedding today? Are the roads clear enough to make a haul? Will that storm slow the grain train? Settle on this price now or bank on a good summer? What kind of pests and diseases will next month’s weather bring?

While the general public might have to alter plans due to an unexpected rain, farmers and ranchers can lose investment, equipment and livestock with the wrong kind of weather surprise.

Plenty of information on up-to-the-minute weather and forecasts can be accessed through television, radio, phone apps, online sources and other marvels of modern technology. The leading source of raw data as well as radar and satellite images for these media sources, though, is the U.S. National Weather Service.

News outlets and other commercial entities, government agencies and the general public can access NWS’ current and archived data for free.

NWS operates under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce, but it originated from a collaborative effort of people across the nation. These original volunteers provided weather data that was recognized as being crucial to the safety and well-being of people in the U.S.

The first efforts to gather weather and climate data across the country began in 1849, said Jim Brusda, meteorologist with National Weather Service in Great Falls.

This weather data mining was spearheaded by the Smithsonian Institution, the NOAA website says. The institution provided weather instruments to telegraph companies and by the end of the year 150 volunteers across the U.S. were telegraphing their observations to the base of operations.

The advanced technology of the telegraph system made the weather reporting system feasible.

Today, there are 122 NWS Weather Forecast Offices equipped with doppler radar systems in six regions of the U.S. More than 8,700 volunteer cooperative weather observers take daily weather readings on farms, in urban and suburban areas, and at national parks, seashores and mountaintops, the website says. Another 900-plus Automated Surface Observing System sites transmit readings every minute to NOAA and NWS offices. ASOS sites are essentially electronic weather stations.

Montana, in the Western Region, has four Weather Forecast Offices. The Havre area gets its weather reports from the Great Falls office, which provides weather information for an area that stretches east of the Continental Divide from the Canadian border, in Blaine to Glacier counties, south to the state line in Gallatin, Madison and Beaverhead counties.

The Glasgow office covers northeast Montana in a 12-county area from Phillips and Petroleum counties east to the state line.

The other two offices are located in Billings and Missoula.

The Great Falls office, alone, oversees more than 100 cooperative weather observers, Brusda said. And the ASOS map shows 12 weather stations reporting within a 30-mile radius of Chinook, from near the Port of Willow Creek to the Bear Paw Mountains. These sites include the Havre and Chinook airports and Montana State University's Northern Agricultural Research Center.

The public is provided online access, at http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/map/?obs=true&wfo=tfx to hourly readings from ASOS stations across the U.S. and throughout North America as well as bouys in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Readings include temperature, cloud cover, moisture, dew point, wind direction and speed and precipitation.

Information from ASOS stations on bouys in the Pacific also includes water temperature readings to a depth of nearly 1,000 feet which, among other things, help forecast and monitor El Niño and La Niña weather patterns, NWS meteorologist Bill Hoenisch said.

“Here in Great Falls we have a National Weather Service radar its called an 88D . .... The technical name is WSR88D, for Weather Surveillance Radar 1988 Doppler,” Brusda said.

“We have satellites in space that are accessed across the United States, so we have weather satellites that transmit images down of cloud cover, temperatures aloft and other weather variables that we use for satellite information,” he said. “... We also are an upper air weather balloon station site where we release a weather balloon twice a day to collect data.”

In the winter months, he said, the weather balloons are released at 4 a.m. and 4 p.m., and in summer months at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. These data-collecting balloons are released every day, no matter the weather, at their National Weather Service office across the street from Great Falls International Airport.

This proximity to airports is common with National Weather Service and started in 1914 when an aeronautics section was started at NWS’ predecessor, the Weather Bureau. This directive to provide weather service to pilots was reinforced in 1926 when The Air Commerce Act directed the Weather Bureau to provide civilian aviation with weather services.

Many airports, including smaller airports like those in Havre, Lewsitown, Livinsgston, Dillon and Cut Bank, had NWS meteorologists stationed until the late 1980s.

“You used to be able to walk over there and there'd be a weather service guy and he’d be tearing stuff off the teletype and hanging that up. And you could go through and flip through the weather service charts for the last few hours and he’d talk you through it and you’d get an in-person briefing,” Montana Aeronautics Division Safety and Education Bureau Chief Harold Dramstad said.

This was standard operation until the late 1980s to 1992 when the NWS modernization was completed, said Brusda.

The modernization and restructuring of National Weather Service was an eight-year, $4.5 billion overhaul of the agency which included developing and implementing five major technologies which the website says included:

• Expanding ASOS sites

• Installing a network of advanced Doppler radars

• Launching a new series of satellites

• Installing advanced computer systems

• Installing a technology integration system.

The ASOS stations are limited in their abilities, the NOAA website says, because they see, essentially, straight up and lack the ability to scan to the horizon like a person. An array of sites in an area, though, provide advantages.

The increase in ASOS sites — supported by faster computers, better images and ease of data access — replaced the in-person weather observations. Pilots, including general aviation and aerial application pilots, initially had to call a toll-free phone number to get the current weather for flights, Dramstad said.

But now pilots, who receive training in reading weather data and radar and satellite imagery when getting licensed, can access this information through computers, smart phones and other hand-held devices. This information is current and easily accessed on the ground and in the air.

Newer-model farm equipment has equivalent technology to give operators access to up-to-the-minute access to weather data and forecasts. Decisions can be made quickly in the yard or in the field.

Combined with the volunteer weather observers, who have been at the heart of the weather service system from the beginning, and ASOS sites providing specific, local information on ground conditions, the broader, new technology has given the public better access to current and forecast information for less expense, Dramstad said.

From telegraph to radar, satellites and super computers National Weather Service has linked modern technology, Mother Nature and the prosperity of mankind for 167 years.

Links of interest:

• Surface Weather, interactive map

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/map/?obs=true&wfo=tfx

• Cooperative Observer Program

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/coop/

• Great Falls Weather Forecast Office

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/tfx/

• Regional Headquarters, map

http://www.weather.gov/organization/regional

• ASOS information page

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/remote/asos.htm

History of the National Weather Service

1849: Smithsonian Institution supplies weather instruments to telegraph companies and establishes extensive observation network. Observations submitted by telegraph to the Smithsonian, where weather maps are created, with 150 reporting volunteers throughout the U.S. by the end of 1849.

1860: 500 stations were furnishing daily telegraphic weather reports.

1870: A Joint Congressional Resolution requiring the Secretary of War to take meteorological observations and provide forecasts and warnings of approaching storms was passed and signed it into law, creating a new national weather service within the U.S. Army Signal Service’s Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce.

Oct. 1, 1890: Congress passes an act transferring the meteorological responsibilities of the weather service to the newly-created U.S. Weather Bureau in the Department of Agriculture.

1891: Weather Bureau becomes responsible for issuing flood warnings to the public.

1894: William Eddy, using five kites to loft a self-recording thermometer, makes the first observations of temperatures aloft.

1901: Official three-day forecasts begin for the North Atlantic.

1909: The Weather Bureau begins its program of free-rising balloon observations.

1910: Weather Bureau begins issuing generalized weekly forecasts for agricultural planning and assessment of water available each season for irrigating the West.

1912: As a result of the Titanic disaster, an international ice patrol is established, conducted by the Coast Guard; first fire weather forecast issued.

1914: An aerological section is established to meet growing needs of aviation; first daily radiotelegraphy broadcast of agricultural forecasts by the University of North Dakota.

1916: A Fire Weather Service is established, with all district forecast centers authorized to issue fire weather forecasts.

1926: The Weather Bureau to provide for weather services to civilian aviation; fire weather service formally inaugurated when Congress provides funds for seven fire weather districts.

1935: A hurricane warning service is established. The Smithsonian Institution begins making long-range weather forecasts based on solar cycles; floating automatic weather instruments mounted on buoys begin collecting marine weather data.

1940: The Weather Bureau is transferred to the Department of Commerce.

1954: The Weather Bureau, Navy, Air Force, MIT’s Institute for Advanced Study, and the University of Chicago form a Joint Numerical Weather Prediction Unit in Maryland. This will become a twice-daily routine in 1955, using an IBM 701.

The first radar specifically designed for meteorological use, the AN/CPS-9, is unveiled by the Air Weather Service, USAF.

1955: Regularly-scheduled operational computer forecasts begun by the Joint Numerical Forecast Unit.

1956: The Bureau initiates a National Hurricane Research Project.

1957: A proposal is accepted to modify surplus Navy Doppler radars for severe storms observation — the first endeavor to measure motion of precipitation particles by radar.

1960: The world’s first weather satellites, TIROS I and II, are successfully launched from the Air Force Missile Test Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Meteorologists issue first advisories on air pollution potential over the eastern United States.

1967: Responsibility for issuing air pollution advisories is assigned to the Weather Bureau’s National Meteorological Center; fire weather forecasts are extended to cover contiguous U.S.

1970: The Weather Bureau is set up as the National Weather Service in the newly created National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association under the Department of Commerce.

1975: The first "hurricane hunter" Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched into orbit.

1976: Real-time operational forecasts and warnings using Doppler radar are evaluated by the Joint Doppler Operational Project, spawning a third Generation Weather Radar, the WSR-88D.

1989: Eight year plan for the modernization and restructuring of the National Weather Service is announced. The $4.5 billion overhaul of the agency lasted a decade and changed the way the agency operates. NWS developed and implemented major technologies.

2000: The NWS modernization and associated restructuring is completed.

2009: NWS completed implementation of the final phase of a nine-year, $180 million contract by installing the newest generation of IBM supercomputers for weather and climate prediction.

Adapted from the timeline on http://www.weather.gov/timeline