The National Weather Service (NWS) is tasked with providing "weather, hydrologic, and climate forecasts and warnings for the United States, its territories, adjacent waters and ocean areas, for the protection of life and property and the enhancement of the national economy." This is done through a collection of national and regional centers, 13 river forecast centers (RFCs), and more than 120 local weather forecast offices (WFOs). They are charged with issuing weather and river forecasts, advisories, watches, and warnings on a daily basis. They issue more than 734,000 weather and 850,000 river forecasts, and more than 45,000 severe weather warnings annually. NOAA data is also relevant to the issues of global warming and ozone depletion.

We learned that the weather service is the only government bureau authorized to provide weather advisories, warnings and alerts.  The weather service office in RB is staffed 24 hours a day.  The office collects local weather data and is responsible for providing weather reports and forcasts to local media as well as providing weather information for aviation and marine services.  This office is also one of 90 offices worldwide that launch weather balloons twice a day at noon and midnight Greenwich time.  We learned what kind of information these radiosonde weather balloons gather as the ascend into the atmosphere. 

In the weather service center, the staff (currently 20 persons) work at computer workstations that have 4 monitors.  All of them are capable of performing all of the tasks required in the center.

There is much more information that we learned during this very interesting and informative tour. Most of us have seen the red brick rounded shape Promontory Building sitting on the hill overlooking the intersection of RB Road and West Bernardo Drive, but few of us actually had any idea of the role of the Weather Service office there. We may have seen the wind speed and direction device on the pylon on the south side of the building, but that was probably the limit of our awareness. 

Our sincere thanks to Rosemarie Bergdahl for spearheading this fascinating tour

For pictures click: NWS Tour