14th Weather Squadron
Encyclopedia
Geographically Separate Unit
Geographically Separate Unit is a United States military term describing a base that is physically separated from, yet not autonomous of its "parent" base. GSUs are "owned" by their parent organization and are typically quite small....
(GSU) located in the Veach-Baley Federal Complex in Asheville
Asheville, North Carolina
Asheville is a city in and the county seat of Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. It is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the 11th largest city in North Carolina. The City is home to the United States National Climatic Data Center , which is the world's largest active...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It has a military applied climatology
Climatology
Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences...
mission. The 14 WS collects, stores, and characterizes earth-space environmental data to provide tailored and simulated weather information and services that maximize the combat effectiveness of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) personnel and weapons systems. The 14 WS enhances the combat capability of the United States by delivering environmental situational awareness worldwide to the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
(USAF), the Army, Unified Combatant Command
Unified Combatant Command
A Unified Combatant Command is a United States Department of Defense command that is composed of forces from at least two Military Departments and has a broad and continuing mission. These commands are established to provide effective command and control of U.S. military forces, regardless of...
s, the Intelligence Community, and the Department of Defense. The 14 WS also collaborates with the National Climatic Data Center
National Climatic Data Center
The United States National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina is the world's largest active archive of weather data. The center became established in late 1951, with the move into the new facility occurring in early 1952....
(NCDC), and the Fleet Numerical Meteorological and Oceanographic Detachment-Asheville (FNMOD-A). The 14 WS is a subordinate unit of the 2nd Weather Group
2nd Weather Group
The 2nd Weather Group, located at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., delivers timely, relevant and specialized terrestrial, space and climatological global environmental intelligence to Joint warfighters, the United States Department of Defense, US Government agencies and nations allied with the United...
(2 WXG), which is located at Offutt Air Force Base
Offutt Air Force Base
Offutt Air Force Base is a U.S. Air Force installation near Omaha, and lies adjacent to Bellevue in Sarpy County, Nebraska. It is the headquarters of the U.S...
(AFB), Nebraska
Nebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
.
Vision
DoD’s provider of earth-space decision-enabling products, allowing command authorities to anticipate and simulate environmental impacts on all aspects of military operations worldwide.Mission
The mission of the 14 WS is to provide “rapidly disseminating customized applied climatological and historical weather information to maximize combat effectiveness of DoD personnel and weapon systems, through expert receipt, quality control, storage, and tailoring of Earth-Space environmental data.”Organization
The 14 WS consists of more than 70 active-duty officerOfficer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
and enlisted personnel, civilian
Civilian
A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...
s, and contractors. The majority of the personnel at the 14 WS are meteorologists, weather technicians, and computer programmers that work together in accomplishing the mission. The 14WS is divided into two flights, the Operations Flight and the Systems Flight.
Emblem
BLAZON:On a disc Azure, an anemometer
Anemometer
An anemometer is a device for measuring wind speed, and is a common weather station instrument. The term is derived from the Greek word anemos, meaning wind, and is used to describe any airspeed measurement instrument used in meteorology or aerodynamics...
Sable fimbriated or environed by a tri-parted knot Celeste overall; all within a narrow border Blue. Attached below the disc, a White scroll edged with a narrow Blue border and inscribed “14TH WEATHER SQUADRON” in Blue letters.
SIGNIFICANCE:
Ultramarine
Ultramarine
Ultramarine is a blue pigment consisting primarily of a double silicate of aluminium and sodium with some sulfides or sulfates, and occurring in nature as a proximate component of lapis lazuli...
blue and Air Force yellow are the Air Force colors. Blue alludes to the sky, the primary theater of Air Force operations. Yellow refers to the sun and the excellence required of Air Force personnel. The tri-parted knot alludes to the worldwide data base archived on computer tape. The weather anemometer icon denotes the unit’s mission.
History
The Origins of Military Applied ClimatologyPunched cards, which are pieces of stiff paper that contain digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions, were a technical marvel when they came into prominence in the United States. The cards, developed by Herman Hollerith
Herman Hollerith
Herman Hollerith was an American statistician who developed a mechanical tabulator based on punched cards to rapidly tabulate statistics from millions of pieces of data. He was the founder of one of the companies that later merged and became IBM.-Personal life:Hollerith was born in Buffalo, New...
for use in the 1890 U.S. Census, made the use of historical weather records a practical means for determining the probability of future weather events and patterns. The British used punched cards successfully in about 1920 to extract wind data from ships’ logs and to produce wind roses for ocean regions. The Dutch Meteorological Institute borrowed some of the British cards in 1922 and began their own weather analyses. Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
soon followed. Then, in 1927, the Czech meteorologist, L.W. Pollak, placed small and inexpensive punch machines of his own design in every Czech weather station. As each observation was taken, it was punched on a card that was sent to a central tabulating unit for summary and analysis. Although the equipment for gathering and tabulating weather data has changed since then, the basic idea of the process has not.
The United States, where the punched card originated, was late to join the Europeans in collecting and tabulating weather observations. Fortunately, one of the “make-work” projects of the mid-1930s resulted in a sizable punched card climatic database. A 1934 Works Progress Administration
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...
(WPA) project resulted in an atlas of ocean climates, prepared by punching 2 million observations (taken from 1880 to 1933) onto cards and summarizing the results. Another 3.5 million observations were processed manually, a task that took 90 percent of the labor devoted to the entire project.
In 1936, the WPA also funded a project that resulted in the compilation and analysis of millions of surface and upper-air observations taken from 1928 to 1941. From this project came a number of climatological publications vital to the nation’s preparation for World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
World War II
Although there was strong pressure for neutrality, military visionaries had seen the need to prepare for war as early as 1937, when the Air Weather Service (AWS) itself was founded. The Army Air Forces Weather Research Center’s Climatological Section was born at Bolling Field, 10 September 1941; one week after the U.S. Destroyer Greer was attacked by a German submarine off the coast of IcelandIceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
.
By 1941, the U.S. Weather Bureau had already turned over most of its climatological records and facilities to the military. Most of the Weather Bureau’s climatology had been produced by the depression-induced WPA projects mentioned earlier. Even so, our military climatology had a long way to go. Both our allies and enemies had a strategic advantage during the war because they began their analyses of weather statistics much earlier. The Pearl Harbor attack on 7 December 1941 moved the collection and application of weather statistics to a top-drawer priority overnight. With current weather and forecasts blacked out in hostile areas, planners turned to the climatologists with their questions. Where should air bases be located? How should the runways be oriented? What areas should heavy armor avoid? What should specifications for fuels and lubricants be? How about specifications for landing mats, wires, buildings? What times, dates, and locations are best for amphibious landings? How about bombing weather? Prevailing winds aloft?
Because of this urgent need, early in 1942, the WPA civilian punched card project was quickly transformed into a support resource for the Armed Forces. By the end of the war, 80 million cards were punched, many from pre-war weather observation forms of other countries. These cards were summarized into products, such as flying weather and low visibility summaries, which were essential for military operations. Throughout World War II, the Air Weather Service maintained a Climatology Division with its staff at Headquarters U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) in the Pentagon, and then in May 1943, with the USAAF Weather Wing at Asheville, North Carolina. This same year, USAAF Statistical Services Division was created at Winston-Salem, N.C., to begin the routine storage and processing of military weather observations. It is safe to conclude that climatology was important to every major or minor WWII operation; the planning for every landing, mission, and offensive, to include the D-Day Invasion in 1944 and the atomic bombing of Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, required extensive climatological preparation and analyses.
Postwar
Although demobilization cut deeply into the Air Weather Service’s wartime strength of nearly 19,000, the importance of climatology and its applications continued to be recognized. In early 1946, the military established a Climatology Unit at Gravelly Point, VA. In 1948, the Military Climatology Division moved to Andrews AFB, with Dr. Woodrow C. Jacobs as its chief.The USAAF Statistical Services Division (about 300 strong) moved to New Orleans in 1946 as part of the newly created New Orleans Tabulating Unit. This unit was a joint Weather Bureau, Air Force, and Navy climate center established after the war to unify U.S. civilian and military records, observing methods, and data management procedures. After the war, many punched card collections that were acquired from our allies or captured from our enemies were sent to New Orleans for processing (one set weighed 21 tons). The “Kopenhagener Schlussel” deck of 7 million captured German punched cards contained weather observations taken during WWII in Europe and the Middle East. Both the British Admiralty’s and the Deutsche Seewarte’s decks had millions of ship observations that went back to the 1850s.
The 1950s
The Climatic Center at Andrews AFB continued to provide climatological data applications under various designations throughout the decade, with particular emphasis on the war in Korea and the strategic buildup necessitated by the Cold War. Detachment 3, Headquarters Air Weather Service (the Postweather Analysis Division) was initially activated on 1 May 1954 at Andrews AFB. On 18 December 1957, the AWS merged the Climatic Analysis Division and the Data Integration Branch with Detachment 3 in spaces at Suitland, Maryland formerly occupied by the USAF Weather Central. On 1 April 1959, Detachment 3 (the Climatic Center) moved from Suitland to the Washington Navy YardWashington Navy Yard
The Washington Navy Yard is the former shipyard and ordnance plant of the United States Navy in Southeast Washington, D.C. It is the oldest shore establishment of the U.S. Navy...
(Annex 2, at 225 D. Street, Southeast) on the Potomac River. At this time, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
electronic accounting equipment installed at the Climatic Center allowed data processing directly from punched card to tape. Physical space necessary to store the growing punched card libraries was dwindling. As a result, the Statistical Services Division in New Orleans moved to Asheville, North Carolina in 1952 and was renamed the Data Control Division. In 1956, the first electronic computer became operational at Asheville, signaling the end for the high-speed electronic accounting machines (mostly IBM) used since WWII to process climatology.
The 1960s
Effective 1 July 1960, the AWS abolished the Directorate of Climatology at Headquarters Air Weather Service and inactivated Detachment 3, Headquarters Air Weather Service. In place of Detachment 3, the 2150th Air Weather Squadron was established as a named Air Force activity (the Climatic Center, USAF) and assumed control of Detachment 3's operating location (the Data Processing Division) at Asheville. On 1 July 1961 the 2150th was redesignated as the 1210th Weather Squadron and, on 1 May 1963, it was reassigned in place from Headquarters Air Weather Service to the 4th Weather Group. In 1964, an IBM 7040 computer was installed at the Climatic Center.Effective 15 December 1964, the Climatic Center was officially designated the Environmental Technical Applications Center (ETAC), USAF and the Data Processing Division became Operating Location 1 (OL-1, 1210 WS) under ETAC. ETAC was assigned in place to the 6th Weather Wing on 8 October 1965. On 9 June 1967, the center was reorganized as the United States Air Force Environmental Technical Applications Center (USAFETAC) concurrent with the 1210th's deactivation.
Computer upgrades continued. OL-1 bought a new IBM 705-III from the Department of Agriculture in 1965 and an IBM 7044 replaced the 7040 in 1966. In 1968, twin RCA Spectra 70/45 computer systems were commissioned at Asheville for joint use by OL-1 and the National Climatic Data Center (then the National Weather Records Center).
The 1970s
In July 1970, OL-1 was renamed OL-A. By 1972, OL-A’s card-punching function had been all but eliminated, resulting in a manpower drop from about 200 to 122. A further reduction brought OL-A’s authorized civilian strength to 83.Effective 30 August 1975, the Center transferred its flag from its Washington, D.C. Navy Yard Annex location to a location on the south side of Scott AFB, Illinois following a legal battle in Washington D.C. over where the Center should be located. The move, which took 13 months and put USAFETAC’s project commitments about 2 years behind schedule, was declared complete on 31 October 1975 when the new PDP 11/45 and IBM 360/45 computers became operational. USAFETAC was reassigned as a Direct Reporting Unit (DRU) to Air Force Global Weather Central (AFGWC) on 1 August 1975.
In 1976, the merged HQ AWS and USAFETAC Library (the largest technical library dedicated to weather in the U.S) was officially designated Air Force Library #4414, and named the “AWS Technical Library.” In 1979, the twin RCA computers at OL-A were replaced by UNIVAC 1100/10s. And, by the end of 1979, USAFETAC strength reached 232 people, with 149 of those employed at Scott AFB and 83 people employed at Asheville. By the end of the decade, the demand for climatological services remained extremely high, with the project backlog at nearly fifty thousand man-hours.
The 1980s and 90s
USAFETAC continued to exploit both computer and electronic technologies as its computing power expanded exponentially through the ‘80s and ‘90s. As a result of AWS’s detachment from the Military Airlift Command, and becoming a Field Operating Agency reporting to the USAF Director of Weather, USAFETAC was reassigned directly under AWS on 9 July 1991. To better reflect the changing mission of the unit, USAFETAC was officially renamed the Air Force Combat Climatology Center (AFCCC) on 1 October 1995, remaining a DRU under AWS. AWS was redesignated as the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) on 15 October 1997 and AFCCC became a DRU under AFWA.With the end of the Cold War, AFCCC faced a 45% cut in overall manning (civilian positions cut by 65%). This required an organizational restructure. On 17 May 1996, HQ USAF/XOO officially announced that AFCCC would move from Scott AFB to Asheville, NC. This move was completed on 1 July 1998, with the unit transferring its flag to the Federal Building Complex alongside the National Climatic Data Center; OL-A deactivated upon the change of station.
The 21st Century
As part of another reorganization of the Air Force Weather Agency, AFCCC was officially redesignated the 14th Weather Squadron on 1 October 2007, reporting to the 2nd Weather Group. At the end of 2007, the strength of 14 WS stood at 95 authorized positions. The 14 WS possesses the DoD’s most complete repository of worldwide weather data, receiving nearly 500,000 weather observations and satellite-derived wind profiles each day. Over the unit’s history, customer support has expanded to include all of the military services, the joint commands, AF and Army major commands, U.S. intelligence agencies, the White House and foreign allied military organizations.Today’s military climatologists and analysts continue to fulfil customer requests similar to those of their predecessors as long as 60 years ago, but with much-improved techniques and equipment. Resources have grown from punched card data decks begun by the WPA in the 1930s to many computing choices, among many client/server networks and climatic databases.
14 WS is continuously upgrading to the latest data visualization techniques and other technologies as they become available. This has allowed 14 WS to provide natural environment representations to the DoD Modeling & Simulation community for use in all live, virtual, and constructive simulation-based activities. On 30 Nov 07, the Environmental Scenario Generator (ESG) transitioned from research and development to operational use. ESG provides the ability to generate customized environmental scenario databases for simulations supporting the DoD in training, acquisition, testing, planning, and experimentation activities.
In an increasingly net-centric environment, we are developing tool sets to rapidly acquire, use, and share products in a distributed environment, integrating environmental information and embedding people into the appropriate systems and decision cycles. We are, and intend to remain, the recognized leader in DoD climatological support.
Awards and honors
- Air Force Organizational Excellence Award- 1 January 1988 - 30 June 1989
- Air Force Outstanding Unit Award- 26 September 1983 - 7 September 1984
See also
- National Climatic Data CenterNational Climatic Data CenterThe United States National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina is the world's largest active archive of weather data. The center became established in late 1951, with the move into the new facility occurring in early 1952....
- 2nd Weather Squadron2nd Weather SquadronThe 2nd Weather Squadron , based out of Offutt Air Force Base, NE, continuously supports Joint warfighters and DoD decision-makers, including the intelligence community and space operators with accurate, relevant, timely and specialized global terrestrial and space observations, analyses, forecasts...
- 2nd Systems Operations Squadron2nd Systems Operations SquadronThe 2d Systems Operations Squadron , based out of Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, delivers reliable and timely global environmental intelligence products and services for the defense of the United States of America and its global interests through the 24 x 7 operation, sustainment and maintenance...