THE U.S. NAVAL WEATHEE SERVICE 



Captain Edwin T. Harding, USN 

 Commander, Naval Weather Service Command 



ABSTRACT 



The Naval Weather Service is described as to composition 

 organization, functions, and methods of operation. Meteorological 

 and oceanographic products used in support of Fleet operations are 

 discussed, with emphasis given to those which show the Navy' s tech- 

 nical treatment of the oceans and atmosphere as an indivisible, 

 coupled environmental system. Trends in development of future en- 

 vironmental service products are discussed. 



Many must have raised the question when they saw the program, 

 "Why a talk on the Naval Weather Service at a symposium on military 

 oceanography?" The answer lies in the fact that the Naval Weather 

 Service, from the operational standpoint, is military oceanography. 

 The scene of our activity lies over water. Nearly half of our pre- 

 diction products are concerned with the ocean surface or subsurface. 

 We probably should change ovr name to the Naval Environmental Pre- 

 diction Service. 



The Naval Weather Service is now the Navy's operational arm in 

 both the meteorological and oceanographic disciplines. For years 

 our emphasis was on aviation forecasting, but in the last fifteen 

 years, we have taken over more and more oceanographic forecasting. 

 Research and development in the oceanographic area have been done 

 mostly by other activities, such as the Oceanographic Office, and 

 as techniques and accompanying products have reached the point of 

 having potential operational use to the Fleet, the Naval Weather 

 Service has taken them over. The reasons for our takeover are that 

 the atmosphere and the oceans are treated as one environment, and 

 our customers require simultaneous forecasts for both media. Further 

 considerations are that we have communications, our weather units 

 are located with the Fleet, and oiir people have the scientific 

 capability to forecast in the oceans as well as in the air. 



The reason for this Naval Weather Service talk, then, is to 

 show you -- the engineers, researchers, and industrialists — how we 

 work and how we mesh with the oceanographic community. 



The Navy has recognized the need for a Weather Service for 

 over 100 years, dating back to the days of Lt. Matthew Fontaine 

 Maury in the 18^4-0' s. An organization called the Marine Meteoro- 

 logical Service actually existed in the iSOO's; from this, we 



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