        THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: WEATHER AND THE XXV I OLYMPIAD



                       Author/Editor: Mac McLaughlin

                      Associate Editor: Lans Rothfusz



 Published by the National Weather Service Southern R egion in association

                  with the NOAA Office of Public Affairs.

The National Weather Service thanks The Smithsonian Institution for its per

                    mission to use the format and style

  of its publication A WORLD OF DISCOVERY as a template for this document.



Organized weather services in the U.S. federal government originated over

180 years ago. During the War of 1812, the Surgeon General of the Army, Dr.

James Tilton, directed his hospital surgeons to observe t he weather and

maintain climatological records. In 1849, an extensive natio nwide

meteorological observation system was established by Prof. Joseph Hen ry of

the Smithsonian Institution.



The National Weather Service was founded in 1870, when President U.S. Grant

signed a bill into law authorizing and requiring the secretary of war to p

rovide for the taking of meteorological observations at military stations a

nd other points in the Unites States and for giving notice, by magnetic tel

egraph and marine signals, of the approach and force of storms on the Great

Lakes and on the sea coast. This weather service was placed in the U.S. Ar

my Signal Corps. Twenty years later, the Organic Act of 1890 (15 USC 313) a

ssigned the National Weather Service the responsibility of taking meteorolo

gical observations, forecasting the weather, and issuing storm warnings for

the entire nation. The National Weather Service still operates under the a

uthority of the Organic Act of 1890 and today is a component of the Nationa

l Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department

of Commerce.



Following the selection of Atlanta, Georgia, as the host city for the 1996

Olympic Games, the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games requested that t

he National Weather Service provide weather support services for the 1996 G

ames. Subsequent to that request, the Assistant Administrator for Weather S

ervices appointed an Olympic Weather Support Project Coordinator and an Oly

mpic Weather Support Coordinating Committee. The Project Coordinator and th

e Coordinating Committee were assigned the responsibility of working with t

he Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, other components of NOAA, other

federal agencies, the World Meteorological Organization, the National Cent

er for Atmospheric Research, local government agencies, and the private sec

tor in developing and implementing plans for providing the needed weather s

ervice.



The National Weather Service is providing weather support to the 1996 Olymp

ic Games under the authority vested in it by the Organic Act of 1890 and un

der the sanction of the World Meteorological Organization. In providing the

se services, the National Weather Service has no intent to benefit a specif

ic Olympic team or competitor.



This book provides a documentation of the entire Olympic Weather Support Pr

oject, including discussions of the established infrastructure, the technol

ogy used in the support effort, and the products and services available to

Olympic officials, coaches, athletes, spectators, the media, and the genera

l public. References to certain corporations and their products are based o

n fact. Such references do not constitute, either explicitly or implicitly,

an endorsement of those products either by the National Weather Service or

the United States government.



                              Acknowledgments

Contributors: J.T. Johnson; Kathy Rothfusz, Chris Smith, Susan Beckwith; Me

mbers of the Olympic Weather Support Coordinating Committee; the National C

enters for Environmental Prediction; the National Severe Storms Laboratory;

the Forecast Systems Laboratory; the Techniques Development Laboratory; IB

M, Inc.; Corporate Graphics; Seaborn Studios



Cover: Cumulonimbus mamma cloud formation seen at sunset over the Boundary

Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota on July 15, 1991. (Photo by Lan s

Rothfusz. All Rights Reserved.) Frontispiece: The Space Shuttle Atlantis

lifting off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on August 2, 1991, with the dome

of the National Weather Service's WSR-88D radar in the foreground. (Photo

by Rich Bingham, Loral Corp. All Rights Reserved.)



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