WFO Huntsville - 20 Years Serving Tennessee Valley

Follow along with us as we revisit the history of our office (which began as the Weather Bureau back in 1958) and see a glimpse into the future with our current Meteorologist in Charge (MIC), Todd Barron!

This video below showcases the great milestone of NWS Huntsville providing 20 years of dedicated service to the residents of northern Alabama and southern middle Tennessee over the past 20 years through the words of our current MIC, Todd Barron. He also gives us a glimpse into the exciting direction of where the NWS Huntsville Forecast is headed in the future.

There are several videos from previous MICs sprinkled throughout the history of our office; each will tackle a different opportunity or topic that either molded their tenure here, or is something they're very passionate about. A timeline below gives you an idea of the leadership tenure of our previous MIC's as well.

John Gordon, the first MIC of NWS Huntsville was the chief architect of reopening the previously closed Weather Bureau office as the new Weather Service Forecast office in 2003. In the video below, he details what it was like to spin up an office in record time, and all the moving parts that were involved during this very exciting time for northern Alabama and portions of southern middle Tennessee.

Next up is Chris Darden, MIC of NWS Huntsville between 2011 and 2019. Chris highlights the importance of our office being co-located with University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and the amazing opportunities that are available as a direct result of Research-to-Operations collaboration through the SPoRT program.

Being co-located with UAHuntsville provides unique opportunities on both sides of the worlds of Research and Operations. New and exciting technology is being developed literally down the hall from our office here at NWS Huntsville and we get to be some of the first in the country to test it out in real-time! This is what is called "R2O: Research to Operations." Below are some of the initiatives that being co-located has afforded the staff at NWS Huntsville through the years:

 NASA SPoRT (Short-term Research and Transition)  

• Notable Collaboration with NASA/UAH Researchers
• SPoRT Land Information Systems Product (SPoRT-LIS)
  • Allows the user to investigate soil moisture values (in percentages) of several depths (0-200cm) to determine if flood/drought potential exists
  • This product is very helpful in determining if a "flash drought" is developing across an area!
• Lightning Mapping Array (predecessor to GLM lightning detection products on GOES Satellites)
  • Shows which developing storms are more likely to produce CG lightning strikes and provides up to 15 minutes lead time prior to a cloud-to-ground lightning strike.
• Satellite RGBs - Nighttime Microphysics Red-Green-Blue (RGB)
  • Useful for detecting fog and low clouds vs. higher clouds
  • Satellite updates of RGB imagery occur every 1-minute or 5-minutes- making this product useful as it frequently updates
• SPoRT Streamflow Prediction/Hydrographs
  • Takes into account several models' precipitation output, and using machine learning, can give estimated stream heights based on previous learned behavior of stream responses for a particular river/creek basin.

• Notable Collaboration:
  •  UPSTORM  (Collaboration began Fall 2015)
  • UAH Profile Sounding Team for Operational and Research Meteorology
  • Students take part in launching weather balloons both at UAH as well as across the TN Valley to study the environment ahead of/behind storms.
  • NWS Huntsville utilizes this sounding data for mesoanalysis purposes during severe weather events.
  • Operational Weather Forecasting Class (Collaboration began Spring 2012)
  • Students are taught techniques for forecasting critical weather elements. Interpretation, use and systematic errors of computer-generated products, human factors with forecasting, and application of meteorological theory in an operational setting. Several lectures are led by NWS Huntsville forecasters/staff.
  • Perhaps the most fun part of the OWF class is the final exam, where NWS Huntsville meteorologists simulate an operational shift for the students during which they have to complete typical daily duties of an NWS employee, as well as balance phone calls from the public, briefings for core partners, and any resultant products from these events (which may or may not include Hazardous Materials spills, bomb threats, etc.).

Mike Coyne, MIC of the Huntsville Forecast office from 2005 to 2011, will tell us about partner engagement and how important it is for professional relationships and trust to be built before a disaster happens. Meteorologists at NWS Huntsville don't just chat with our Emergency Management and other core partners during events; there are tons of hours of communication and planning that occur before we issue any warnings. Mike walks us through why these partnerships are important, and how they play a role in improving the Weather Enterprise (everyone involved during weather events to help keep others safe).

Jennifer Saari from NWS Huntsville partnered with Trevor Boucher at NWS Nashville in 2012 to co-develop a fully accessible Skywarn class for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (D/HH). Building partnerships with Alabama Institute Deaf and Blind (AIDB) and Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services (ADRS) allowed NWS Huntsville host their first class in September 2012. Local TV meteorologists and Emergency Management Agencies have attended several classes to allow the opportunity for everyone to ask questions and learn from each other. To learn more about this outreach program click here.

Not only did attendees receive tailored weather safety information, but one more way to receive weather alerts. AIDB and ADRS partnered with the Alabama Public Health to obtain funding to purchase weather radios and strobe light attachments to give to participants that needed them and NWS Huntsville programed all of the radios after class.

During NWS Huntsville's first class, we quickly had a lightning bolt moment when the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community let us know that "When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors!" lightning safety campaign does not work for them. It's audible reliant and the rhyming that makes it catchy, doesn't translate into American Sign Language (ASL). Jennifer and Trevor worked with the D/HH community and partners to develop "See a Flash, Dash Inside!" lightning safety campaign, including the slogan, logo and safety video. Below is the logo that was developed and nationally implemented by NWS and NOAA June 2016. To learn more about the history of the D/HH outreach program, check out the NOAA Euducation article  here .

(Before the NWS was the Weather Bureau)

Though the National Weather Service Weather Forecast office opened in 2003, there had been a Weather Bureau/National Weather Service presence since 1958. The office was originally established around the time Huntsville began to "boom" when the military base, Redstone Arsenal came to town. With the influx of people and increased air traffic, it was decided that Huntsville would receive its own Weather Bureau office (precursor to the National Weather Service). This office's area of responsibility included "Huntsville and a 25-mile radius including Redstone Arsenal" when it first opened. It's WSR-3 radar can be seen in the picture to the left and behind the building.

As Huntsville continued to grow, a new Huntsville-Madison County Airport was built, and the Weather Bureau office moved along with the airport. They began operations at the new location on October 29, 1967 - almost exactly nine years to the day it began operations in Huntsville.

In the mid-to-late 1980s, planning began for the NWS's National Modernization and Associated Restructuring program, during which the new WSR-88D (also called NEXRAD) radar network would be deployed across the country. As a part of the process, all of the existing Weather Service Forecast offices (WSFO's) and select Weather Service Offices (WSO's) would become Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) responsible for both warning and forecast responsibilities in their respective areas. WSO's not selected would close - around 135 nationwide - including WSO Huntsville. Warning responsibilities would be transferred to WFO Birmingham.

With tornado events of 1974 and 1989 fresh in their minds, many Tennessee Valley residents were not comfortable losing their local weather office, much less their local radar. The radar debate delayed the inevitable until 1997, when a WSR-88D would be commissioned at Hytop, AL, and the office would close on December 2, 1997.

In the early 2000s, Congressman Bud Cramer sought Congressional legislation to open a new office in Huntsville, Alabama. After several years without a local weather office, $3 million in startup money was budgeted in the Fiscal Year 2002 Commerce, Justice, and State appropriations bill for a new full service Weather Forecast Office (WFO) in Huntsville, AL. It was decided the office would be located in the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) building on the campus of the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and would serve 11 counties in North Alabama. This would include the ten counties originally covered by WSO Huntsville and Cullman County.

John Gordon, previously a Lead Forecaster at WFO Nashville, was selected as MIC of the new Huntsville office. It was his responsibility to assemble the office's staff of 18 and see through the installation and configuration of entirely new equipment. By August of 2002, all 18 positions had been filled, and training began to gear up the new staff for full time operation. The new staff consisted of meteorologists from all over the United States - as far north as Boston, and as far west as Salt Lake City. Many employees came from surrounding offices in Memphis, Nashville, Birmingham, and Peachtree City, and two had been working at the Huntsville WSO. The additional founding members of WFO Huntsville included Tim Troutman, Tom Bradshaw, Jason Burks, Brian Burgess, Lloyd Hill, Pearline McCauley, Lary Burgett, Bill Schaub, Chris Darden, Matt Zika, Steve Shumway, Robert Boyd, Priscilla Bridenstine, Jason Elliott, Michael Richter, Beth Carroll, and Kurt Weber. In the spirit of fulfilling the wants and needs of those who lobbied for a forecast office in Huntsville, the new office was founded with the mission of focusing operations on the needs of the end users. Close relationships were quickly established with local government officials and the news media. In order to become familiar with the people and geography of their new area of responsibility, each forecaster was taken on familiarization trips through each county in the area. The new office's co-location with the NASA and the UAH Atmospheric Science department presented a rare opportunity to bring together both research and operational meteorologists. Considerable research in the field of meteorology had been ongoing in Huntsville long before the new forecast office came along. Immediately, opportunities for testing experimental forecasting techniques in a real-life setting came about. Of particular interest was NASA's work with modeling, lightning, and satellite data. A liason was designated to work with NASA to coordinate collaboration opportunities, and a room adjacent to the operations floor in the new office was set aside exclusively for collaborative research work.

The new forecast office was equipped with much more modern equipment than the old airport office. AWIPS replaced AFOS as the computer system used to look at weather data and issue products. AWIPS was much faster, more flexible, and more user-friendly than AFOS. It also allowed several meteorologists to interrogate radar data at the same time on different computers, which wasn't possible at the old office. CRS equipment was installed to operate four area weather radio broadcasts. The office assumed responsibility for NOAA Weather Radio broadcasts originating from Huntsville, Florence, Fort Payne, and Cullman. Also, an RPG (Radar Product Generator) and a dedicated line were installed, which would give Huntsville forecasters control over the WSR-88D radar in Hytop.

Early plans called for the new office to open on February 4, 2003, but quick work by several people allowed the office to open on January 14th - the fastest spinup of a modern forecast office in National Weather Service history. The official switchover happened at 10 AM when lead forecaster Chris Darden sent out Huntsville's first product - an Area Forecast Discussion, which was shortly followed by Huntsville's first zone forecast. At the same time, weather radio broadcasts began from Huntsville and other routine duties began at the new office. A short ceremony was held marking the first day of operations. At the end of the month, an official dedication ceremony was held.

Over the next few years, even more changes were on the horizon for the office. In April 2003, an additonal  NOAA Weather Radio  transmitter was installed near Arab to cover parts of Sand Mountain, bringing the total number of weather radio stations in the Huntsville CWA to five. On November 5th, WFO Huntsville assumed responsibility for three Tennessee counties that border Alabama - Lincoln, Moore, and Franklin, making for a total of 14 counties covered by the office. In doing so, the office also took over programming for the recently-installed NOAA Weather Radio transmitter in Franklin County. In 2004, two new  cooperative observer  sites were established at Anderson and Owens Cross Roads - adding to the 21 sites inherited by the office in 2003.

After almost three years of building Huntsville's forecast office from the ground up, John Gordon was promoted to a similar position in Louisville, Kentucky in early 2005. He was replaced by Mike Coyne, who had been working at the National Weather Service's  Southern Region headquarters  in Fort Worth, Texas.  Mike Coyne was promoted to Deputy Director of Performance and Resources of the Southern Region of the NWS and left NWS Huntsville in February 2011.  Chris Darden, pictured above, was officially promoted to MIC of the Huntsville office in early May 2011, but was acting MIC for some of the interim period between February and May 2011, and also during the infamous  April 27th, 2011  super tornado outbreak.   

Chris Darden was the MIC of NWS Huntsville until June 2018 when he took a promotion to be the MIC at NWS Birmingham, AL. Todd Barron, the current MIC, was hired in July 2019.

Between 2011 and 2012, the National Weather Service incorporated Dual Polarization technology in the WSR-88D radar equipment across the country. The dual-pol upgrade is the most significant enhancement made to the nation’s radar network since Doppler radar was first installed in the early 1990s. Dual-pol radars provide better information about the type of precipitation in the atmosphere and its intensity, size, and location. The radars provide increased accuracy of forecasts and timely warnings, giving the public better information to serve our ultimate mission- protect lives and property. This new technology was installed on the primary radar site for the Huntsville Forecast Office in Hytop, AL on January 11th, 2012. An upgrade to the workstations (AWIPS II implementation) was completed on June 13, 2012. These two improvement in weather equipment luckily came in time for the April 28-29th, 2014 severe weather outbreak. This outbreak produced 13 tornadoes (including 4 EF-3 tornadoes and 4 EF-2's). One of the bigger snowstorms to affect the northern Alabama followed the next  December on the 25th-26th of 2015.  This storm system dumped 8 to 12 inches of snowfall in locations near and south of the Tennessee River.

Todd continues to embrace the needs of our core partners here at NWS Huntsville, all while initiating and implementing changes that are regional or national in scale within the NWS. We want to, again, close with his words on the future of NWS Huntsville and the NWS as a whole.