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With weather a common topic of discussion and concern, it isn't surprising national weather service is a popular tag. The National Weather Service (NWS) is the federal agency responsible for providing weather and climate forecasts and warnings for the United States.
The agency was created on Feb. 9, 1870, when President Ulysses S. Grant signed a joint Congressional resolution authorizing the Secretary of War to establish a national weather service. Known as the Weather Bureau, it became part of the Department of Agriculture in 1891 and then the Department of Commerce in 1940. In 1970 it was renamed the National Weather Service and placed within the newly created National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The agency has more than 100 local weather forecast offices. And while computers and radar are essential to forecasting, the NWS relies upon thousands of weather observations made hourly and daily by government agencies, volunteer/citizen observers, ships, planes, automatic weather stations, and earth-orbiting satellites.
