The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

NATIONAL WEATHER CENTER.

The National Weather Center’s stated mission is to “improve scientific and public understanding of Earth’s atmosphere, provide accurate and timely forecasts for severe weather, and train future meteorologists.” The title “National Weather Center” (NWC) refers to a building as well as the programs within it. Located on the University of Oklahoma (OU) Research Campus, in Norman, Oklahoma, the building encompasses 244,000 square feet in seven floors. It houses weather and climate programs that represent a partnership of the University of Oklahoma, a state-supported educational institution, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce (the NWC is not to be confused with NOAA’s National Weather Service). NWC owes its existence to the growth of two organizations founded in Norman in the early 1960s: NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), and the University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology (SOM).

In 1962 the NOAA National Severe Storms Project moved from Kansas City to Norman and became a federal research laboratory led by Edwin Kessler. Subsequently called the National Severe Storms Laboratory, it became known for developing Doppler radar technologies for detecting tornadoes, leading to the deployment of the NEXRAD radar network in the late 1980s. The NOAA Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS), founded in 1978, established a cooperative agreement between NOAA and OU that has existed continuously and since 2021 has been the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-impact Weather Research and Operations (CIWRO). Other NOAA National Weather Service entities moved to Norman during the 1990s, including the Oklahoma City Weather Forecast Office (WFO), the Storm Prediction Center (SPC), and the Radar Operations Center (ROC), all located near NSSL on OU’s North Campus.

The other founding partner, OU’s School of Meteorology, was established in 1960 by Walter Saucier and Yoshi Sasaki. After experiencing rapid growth during the 1970s and 1980s, the meteorology school joined the newly created College of Geosciences in 1981. Another state institution, the Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS), was established in 1982 at OU, and the Center for the Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS), one of the nation’s first eleven National Science Foundation Science and Technology Centers, was awarded to the university in 1989.

Planning for the National Weather Center began in the early 1990s, led by OU Provost Jeff Kimpel (a faculty member in SOM), Dean of Geosciences John Snow, and Pres. David Boren, who arrived to lead OU in 1994. Boren envisioned a large Research Campus, with a building that would house all meteorology-related programs under one roof and thereby alleviate severe overcrowding in their present quarters. Kimpel became NSSL director in 1997, and by 1998 OU and NOAA had agreed to partner in the construction project. The facility would anchor the new Research Campus near Jenkins Street and State Highway 9 in Norman.

A formal name for the new center came from Pres. William J. Clinton’s visit to Oklahoma after the devastating tornado outbreak of May 3, 1999. After meeting with Boren and Gov. Frank Keating, Clinton endorsed the concept of a National Weather Center and provided the first $3 million in funding. President Boren then worked with Oklahoma’s senators and representatives in Congress to raise $33 million over three legislative sessions for NOAA’s 50 percent share. He also worked with state officials to raise $26 million over two years and used university funds (via land sales) to raise the remaining cost of the $67 million project. Groundbreaking occurred on November 1, 2002, and the building was completed and occupied in 2006.

The NWC building provides offices, laboratories, classrooms, libraries, conference rooms, and study areas for its 550 faculty, research scientists, engineers and technicians, operational meteorologists, and graduate and undergraduate students. The building has a rooftop instrumentation facility, an enclosed observation deck at the top level, and a high-bay garage for mobile radars and other research vehicles. An atrium and adjacent 250-seat auditorium are used frequently by the resident agencies, the national weather community, and various university and local organizations.

NOAA’s initial (and year 2025) federal tenants in the NWC are NSSL, SPC, the NWS Norman WFO, the Radar Applications Branch of the ROC, and the NWS Warning Decision Training Division (WDTD). NWC also houses NOAA’s Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT), a collaboration between NSSL, SPC, and the Norman WFO, in which researchers and forecasters from NOAA, academia, international weather centers, and the private sector collaborate to test and evaluate new forecasting technologies. The operational forecasts, watches, and warnings provided by the Norman WFO and SPC save lives and property in Oklahoma and the nation every day.

The initial (and year 2025) OU components include the main office of the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences (A&GS), the SOM, CIMMS/CIWRO, CAPS, and OCS. OCS now hosts the Oklahoma Mesonet, the nation’s leading surface-weather and soil-measurement network, comprising 120 stations across Oklahoma. In addition, a new organization, the Advanced Radar Research Center (ARRC) was founded in 2005 as a result of a radar initiative promoted by President Boren. Under Robert Palmer’s leadership the ARRC expanded to include a Radar Innovations Lab and two other buildings adjacent to the NWC. In July 2025 Palmer replaced Berrien Moore as dean of the A&GS and director of the National Weather Center.

The NWC has spawned additional centers located on the OU Research Campus. These include the U.S. Geological Survey South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center, the Center for Spatial Analysis, the Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program, and several private sector companies, most notably Weathernews America, Inc., and DTN, which purchased Weather Decision Technologies, a company created by NSSL and CAPS scientists. OU’s Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability, a member of A&GS, also contributes to NWC programs. Faculty in the SOM and scientists in NSSL/CIWRO also lead many smaller centers that are too numerous to list.

The external research funding brought in by National Weather Center faculty and scientists has a major impact on OU’s research portfolio. In all, the NWC is home to more than four hundred students, provides more than a thousand jobs, and generates more than $100 million in annual expenditures, a significant economic driver for central Oklahoma. The NWC sponsors an annual National Weather Festival, an educational event that is open to the public.

Frederick H. Carr