NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory 50th Anniversary Celebration

Office of the Federal Coordinator
For Meteorological Services and Supporting Research

1325 East West Highway, SSMC2, Suite 7130
Silver Spring, Maryland 20910

December 3, 2014

Steve Koch
Director, National Severe Storms Laboratory
120 David L. Boren Blvd.
Norman, OK 73072

Dear Dr. Koch,

About a year ago we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research. It is now my profound privilege and honor to acknowledge and celebrate the National Severe Storms Laboratory's 50 years' of accomplishment and our 50-year partnership. NSSL's superb work in proving the potential of Doppler weather radar and developing the operational algorithms to realize that potential was crucial to the success of the tri-agency NEXRAD program and the demonstrated capability of the WSR-88D to save lives. On-going developments by NSSL, including dual polarization, have insured that the WSR-88D remains the world's premier weather radar. In addition to developing first-rate storm observing capabilities, NSSL has continuously advanced the understanding of severe storms and our capability to forecast them.

Our partnership continues with the development of phased array technology. NSSL's innovative conversion of a Navy SPY-1A radar into the National Weather Radar Testbed provided the capability to study storms more carefully, to demonstrate value of rapid and adaptive scanning, and to develop the concepts of multifunctionality.

Going forward, we are excited about continuing our partnership with NSSL as we plan a follow-on to the SPY-1 A NWRT and explore the new and exciting capabilities that active, dual polarization phased array radar will provide to the weather enterprise and the American people it protects.

Congratulations to the all those who have contributed to the NSSL mission over the last 50 years. If history is any indication of what we can expect in the future, the next 50 years of NSSL accomplishments will be awesome.

Sincerely,

PAUL A. ROELLE, Colonel, Ph.D., USAF

DEPFOR Federal Programs & Interagency Coordination, Air Force Weather
On behalf of the OFCM Team