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National Weather Service

The National Weather Service (NWS) is an agency of the United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weather-related products to organizations and the public for the purposes of protection, safety, and general information. It is a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) branch of the Department of Commerce, and is headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, within the Washington metropolitan area. The agency was known as the United States Weather Bureau from 1890 until it adopted its current name in 1970.

The NWS performs its primary task through a collection of national and regional centers, and 122 local Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs). As the NWS is an agency of the U.S. federal government, most of its products are in the public domain and available free of charge.

1870-1899
Calls for the creation of a government weather bureau began as early as 1844, when the electrical telegraph was introduced. In 1869, Cleveland Abbe began developing probabilistic forecasts using daily weather data sent via telegraph by the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce and Western Union, which he convinced to back the collection of such information. Meanwhile, Increase A. Lapham of Wisconsin lobbied Congress to create such a service, having witnessed the destructive power of storms in the Great Lakes region. Representative Halbert E. Paine introduced a bill to provide the funding. In 1870, the Weather Bureau of the United States was established through a joint resolution of Congress signed by President Ulysses S. Grant with a mission to "provide for taking meteorological observations at the military stations in the interior of the continent and at other points in the States and Territories... and for giving notice on the northern (Great) Lakes and on the seacoast by magnetic telegraph and marine signals, of the approach and force of storms." The agency was placed under the Secretary of War as Congress felt "military discipline would probably secure the greatest promptness, regularity, and accuracy in the required observations." Within the Department of War, it was assigned to the U.S. Army Signal Service under Brigadier General Albert J. Myer. General Myer gave the National Weather Service its first name: The Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce.

Abbe was appointed as the Bureau's first chief meteorologist. In his earlier role as the civilian assistant to the chief of the Signal Service, Abbe urged the Department of War to research weather conditions to provide a scientific basis behind the forecasts; he would continue to urge the study of meteorology as a science after becoming Weather Bureau chief. While a debate went on between the Signal Service and Congress over whether the forecasting of weather conditions should be handled by civilian agencies or the Signal Service's existing forecast office, a Congressional committee was formed to oversee the matter, recommending that the office's operations be transferred to the Department of War following a two-year investigation.

The agency first became a civilian enterprise in 1890, when it became part of the Department of Agriculture. Under the oversight of that branch, the Bureau began issuing flood warnings and fire weather forecasts, and issued the first daily national surface weather maps; it also established a network to distribute warnings for tropical cyclones as well as a data exchange service that relayed European weather analysis to the Bureau and vice versa.

20th century
The first Weather Bureau radiosonde was launched in Massachusetts in 1937, which prompted a switch from routine aircraft observation to radiosondes within two years. The Bureau prohibited the word "tornado" from being used in any of its weather products out of concern for inciting panic (a move contradicted in its intentions by the high death tolls in past tornado outbreaks due to the lack of advanced warning) until 1938, when it began disseminating tornado warnings exclusively to emergency management personnel.

The Bureau would in 1940 be moved to the Department of Commerce. In 1941, Margaret Smagorinsky (née Knoepfel) was hired as the Weather Bureau's first female statistician. On July 12, 1950, Bureau chief Francis W. Reichelderfer officially lifted the agency's ban on public tornado alerts in a Circular Letter, noting to all first order stations that "Weather Bureau employees should avoid statements that can be interpreted as a negation of the Bureau's willingness or ability to make tornado forecasts", and that a "good probability of verification" exist when issuing such forecasts due to the difficulty in accurately predicting tornadic activity. However, it would not be until it faced criticism for continuing to refuse to provide public tornado warnings and preventing the release of the USAF Severe Weather Warning Center's tornado forecasts (pioneered in 1948 by Air Force Capt. Robert C. Miller and Major Ernest Fawbush) beyond military personnel that the Bureau issued its first experimental public tornado forecasts in March 1952. In 1957, the Bureau began using radars for short-term forecasting of local storms and hydrological events, using modified versions of those used by Navy aircraft to create the WSR-57 ( W eather S urveillance R adar, 19 57 ), with a network of WSR systems being deployed nationwide through the early 1960s; some of the radars were upgraded to WSR-74 models beginning in 1974.

In August 1966, the Weather Bureau became part of the Environmental Science Services Administration when that agency was formed. The Environmental Science Services Administration was renamed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on October 1, 1970, with the enactment of the National Environmental Policy Act. At this time, the Weather Bureau became the National Weather Service. At the beginning of the 1980s the NWS used the same radar equipment as in the 1950s, and teletype for communication. In 1983, NOAA administrator John V. Byrne proposed to auction off all of the weather satellites, to repurchase data from private buyers, outsourcing weather observation stations, NOAA Weather Radio and computerized surface analysis to private companies but the proposal failed in a Congressional vote.

NEXRAD (Next Generation Radar), a system of Doppler radars deployed to improve the detection and warning time of severe local storms, replaced the WSR-57 and WSR-74 systems between 1988 and 1997.

Forecast sub-organizations

The NWS, through a variety of sub-organizations, issues different forecasts to users, including the general public. Although, throughout history, text forecasts have been the means of product dissemination, the NWS has been using more forecast products of a digital, gridded, image or other modern format. Each of the 122 Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) send their graphical forecasts to a national server to be compiled in the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD). The NDFD is a collection of common weather observations used by organizations and the public, including precipitation amount, temperature, and cloud cover among other parameters. In addition to viewing gridded weather data via the internet, users can download and use the individual grids using a "GRIB2 decoder" which can output data as shapefiles, netCDF, GrADS, float files, and comma-separated value files. Specific points in the digital database can be accessed using an XML SOAP service.

Fire weather
The National Weather Service issues many products relating to wildfires daily. For example, a Fire Weather Forecast, which have a forecast period covering up to seven days, is issued by local WFOs daily, with updates as needed. The forecasts contain weather information relevant to fire control and smoke management for the next 12 to 48 hours, such as wind direction and speed, and precipitation. The appropriate crews use this information to plan for staffing and equipment levels, the ability to conduct scheduled controlled burns, and assess the daily fire danger. Once per day, NWS meteorologists issue a coded fire weather forecast for specific United States Forest Service observation sites that are then input into the National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS). This computer model outputs the daily fire danger that is then conveyed to the public in one of five ratings: low, moderate, high, very high, or extreme.

The local Weather Forecast Offices of the NWS also, under a prescribed set of criteria, issue Fire Weather Watches and Red Flag Warnings as needed, in addition to issuing the daily fire weather forecasts for the local service area. These products alert the public and other agencies to conditions which create the potential for extreme fires. On the national level, the NWS Storm Prediction Center issues fire weather analyses for days one and two of the forecast period that provide supportive information to the local WFO forecasts regarding particular critical elements of fire weather conditions. These include large-scale areas that may experience critical fire weather conditions including the occurrence of "dry thunderstorms", which usually occur in the western U.S., and are not accompanied by any rain due to it evaporating before reaching the surface.

State and federal forestry officials sometimes request a forecast from a WFO for a specific location called a "spot forecast", which are used to determine whether it will be safe to ignite a prescribed burn and how to situate crews during the controlling phase. Officials send in a request, usually during the early morning, containing the position coordinates of the proposed burn, the ignition time, and other pertinent information. The WFO composes a short-term fire weather forecast for the location and sends it back to the officials, usually within an hour of receiving the request.

The NWS assists officials at the scene of large wildfires or other disasters, including HAZMAT incidents, by providing on-site support through Incident Meteorologists (IMET). IMETs are NWS forecasters specially trained to work with Incident Management Teams during severe wildfire outbreaks or other disasters requiring on-site weather support. IMETs travel quickly to the incident site and then assemble a mobile weather center capable of providing continuous meteorological support for the duration of the incident. The kit includes a cell phone, a laptop computer, and communications equipment, used for gathering and displaying weather data such as satellite imagery or numerical forecast model output. Remote weather stations are also used to gather specific data for the point of interest, and often receive direct support from the local WFO during such crises. IMETs, approximately 70 to 80 of which are employed nationally, can be deployed anywhere a disaster strikes and must be capable of working long hours for weeks at a time in remote locations under rough conditions.

Weather Forecast Offices

The National Weather Service is divided into 122 local branches, known as Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs), to issue products specific to those areas. The NWS is divided into six regions. Each WFO maintains a specific area of responsibility spanning multiple counties, parishes or other jurisdictions within the United States – which, in some areas, cover multiple states – or individual possessions; the local offices handle responsibility of composing and disseminating forecasts and weather alerts to areas within their region of service. Some of the products that are only issued by the WFOs are severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings, flood, flash flood, and winter weather watches and warnings, some aviation products, and local forecast grids. The forecasts issued by a WFO are available on their individual pages within the Weather.gov website, which can be accessed through either forecast landing pages (which identify the office that disseminates the weather data) or via the alert map featured on the main page of the National Weather Service website.

Aviation

The NWS supports the aviation community through the production of several forecasts. Each area's WFO has responsibility for the issuance of Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts (TAFs) for airports in their jurisdiction. TAFs are concise, coded 24-hour forecasts (30-hour forecasts for certain airports) for a specific airport, which are issued every six hours with amendments as needed. As opposed to a public weather forecast, a TAF only addresses weather elements critical to aviation; these include wind, visibility, cloud cover and wind shear.

Twenty-one NWS Center Weather Service Units (CWSU) are collocated with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC). Their main responsibility is to provide up-to-the-minute weather information and briefings to the Traffic Management Units and control room supervisors. Special emphasis is given to weather conditions that could be hazardous to aviation or impede the flow of air traffic in the National Airspace System. Besides scheduled and unscheduled briefings for decision-makers in the ARTCC and other FAA facilities, CWSU meteorologists also issue two unscheduled products. The Center Weather Advisory (CWA) is an aviation weather warning for thunderstorms, icing, turbulence, and low cloud ceilings and visibilities. The Meteorological Impact Statement (MIS) is a two- to 12-hour forecast that outlines weather conditions expected to impact ARTCC operations.

The Aviation Weather Center (AWC), located in Kansas City, Missouri, is a central aviation support facility operated by the National Weather Service, which issues two primary products:
 * AIRMET (Airmen's Meteorological Information) – Information on icing, turbulence, mountain obscuration, low-level wind shear, instrument meteorological conditions, and strong surface winds.
 * SIGMETs (Significant Meteorological Information) – Issued for significant weather that may affect an airport of flight path in an area:
 * Convective – Issued for an area of thunderstorms affecting an area of 3000 sqmi or greater, a line of thunderstorms at least 60 nmi long, or severe or embedded thunderstorms affecting any area that are expected to last 30 minutes or longer.
 * Non-convective – Issued for severe turbulence over a 3000 sqmi area, severe icing over a 3000 sqmi, or instrument meteorological conditions over a 3000 sqmi area due to dust, sand, or volcanic ash.

Storm Prediction Center
The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) in Norman, Oklahoma issues severe thunderstorm and tornado watches in cooperation with local WFOs which are responsible for delineating jurisdictions affected by the issued watch, and SPC also issues mesoscale discussions focused upon possible convective activity. SPC compiles reports of severe hail, wind, or tornadoes issued by local WFOs each day when thunderstorms producing such phenomena occur in a given area, and formats the data into text and graphical products. It also provides forecasts on convective activity through day eight of the forecast period (most prominently, the threat of severe thunderstorms, the risk of which is assessed through a tiered system conveyed among six categories – general thunderstorms, marginal, slight, enhanced, moderate, or high – based mainly on the expected number of storm reports and regional coverage of thunderstorm activity over a given forecast day), and is responsible for issuing fire weather outlooks, which support local WFOs in the determination of the need for Red Flag Warnings.

Weather Prediction Center
The Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland provides guidance for future precipitation amounts and areas where excessive rainfall is likely, while local NWS offices are responsible for issuing Flood Watches, Flash Flood Watches, Flood Warnings, Flash Flood Warnings, and Flood Advisories for their local County Warning Area, as well as the official rainfall forecast for areas within their warning area of responsibility. These products can and do emphasize different hydrologic issues depending on geographic area, land use, time of year, as well as other meteorological and non-meteorological factors (for example, during the early spring or late winter a Flood Warning can be issued for an ice jam that occurs on a river, while in the summer a Flood Warning will most likely be issued for excessive rainfall).

In recent years, the NWS has enhanced its dissemination of hydrologic information through the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service (AHPS). The AHPS allows anyone to view near real-time observation and forecast data for rivers, lakes and streams. The service also enables the NWS to provide long-range probabilistic information which can be used for long-range planning decisions.

River Forecast Centers
Daily river forecasts are issued by the thirteen River Forecast Centers (RFCs) using hydrologic models based on rainfall, soil characteristics, precipitation forecasts, and several other variables. The first such center was founded on September 23, 1946. Some RFCs, especially those in mountainous regions, also provide seasonal snow pack and peak flow forecasts. These forecasts are used by a wide range of users, including those in agriculture, hydroelectric dam operation, and water supply resources.

Ocean Prediction Center

The National Weather Service Ocean Prediction Center (OPC) in College Park, Maryland issues marine products for areas that are within the national waters of the United States. NWS national centers or Weather Forecast Offices issue several marine products:
 * Coastal Waters Forecast (CWF) – a text product issued by all coastal WFOs to explicitly state expected weather conditions within their marine forecast area of responsibility through day five; it also addresses expected wave heights.
 * Offshore Waters Forecast (OFF) – a text product issued by the OPC that provides forecast and warning information to mariners who travel on the oceanic waters adjacent to the U.S. coastal waters through day five.
 * NAVTEX forecast – a text forecast issued by the OPC (combining data from the Coastal Waters and Offshore Waters Forecasts) designed to accommodate broadcast restrictions of U.S. Coast Guard NAVTEX transmitters.
 * High Seas Forecast (HSF) – routine text product issued every six hours by OPC to provide warning and forecast information to mariners who travel on the oceanic waters.

National Hurricane Center
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC), respectively based in Miami, Florida and Honolulu, Hawaii, are responsible for monitoring tropical weather in the Atlantic, and central and eastern Pacific Oceans. In addition to releasing routine outlooks and discussions, the guidance center initiates advisories and discussions on individual tropical cyclones, as needed. If a tropical cyclone threatens the United States or its territories, individual WFOs begin issuing statements detailing the expected effects within their local area of responsibility. The NHC and CPHC issue products including tropical cyclone advisories, forecasts, and formation predictions, and warnings for the areas in the Atlantic and parts of the Pacific.

Climate Prediction Center
The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) in College Park, Maryland is responsible for all of the NWS's climate-related forecasts. Their mission is to "serve the public by assessing and forecasting the impacts of short-term climate variability, emphasizing enhanced risks of weather-related extreme events, for use in mitigating losses and maximizing economic gains." Their products cover time scales from a week to seasons, extending into the future as far as technically feasible, and cover the land, the ocean and the atmosphere, extending into the stratosphere. Most of the products issued by the center cover the Contiguous U.S. and Alaska.

Additionally, Weather Forecast Offices issue daily and monthly climate reports for official climate stations within their area of responsibility. These generally include recorded highs, lows and other information (including historical temperature extremes, fifty-year temperature and precipitation averages, and degree days). This information is considered preliminary until certified by the National Climatic Data Center.

Surface observations

The primary network of surface weather observation stations in the United States is composed of Automated Surface Observing Systems (ASOS). The ASOS program is a joint effort of the National Weather Service (NWS), automatic weather station(AWS), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the Department of Defense (DOD). ASOS stations are designed to support weather forecast activities and aviation operations and, at the same time, support the needs of the meteorological, hydrological, and climatological research communities. ASOS was especially designed for the safety of the aviation community, therefore the sites are almost always located near airport runways. The system transmits routine hourly observations along with special observations when conditions exceed aviation weather thresholds (e.g. conditions change from visual meteorological conditions to instrument meteorological conditions). The basic weather elements observed are: sky condition, visibility, present weather, obstructions to vision, pressure, temperature, dew point, wind direction and speed, precipitation accumulation, and selected significant remarks. The coded observations are issued as METARs and look similar to this: METAR KNXX 121155Z 03018G29KT 1/4SM +TSSN FG VV002 M05/M07 A2957 RMK PK WND 01029/1143 SLP026 SNINCR 2/10 RCRNR T2 SET 6///// 7//// 4/010 T10561067 11022 21056 55001 PWINO PNO FZRANO

Getting more information on the atmosphere, more frequently, and from more locations is the key to improving forecasts and warnings. Due to the large installation and operating costs associated with ASOS, the stations are widely spaced. Therefore, the Cooperative Observer Program (COOP), a network of approximately 11,000 mostly volunteer weather observers, provides much of the meteorological and climatological data to the country. The program, which was established in 1890 under the Organic Act, currently has a twofold mission:
 * Provide observational meteorological data, usually consisting of daily maximum and minimum temperatures, snowfall, and 24-hour precipitation totals, required to define the climate of the United States and to help measure long-term climate changes.
 * Provide observational meteorological data in near real-time to support forecast, warning and other public service programs of the NWS.

The National Weather Service also maintains connections with privately operated mesonets such as the Citizen Weather Observer Program for data collection, in part, through the Meteorological Assimilated Data Ingest System (MADIS). Funding is also provided to the CoCoRaHS volunteer weather observer network through parent agency NOAA.

Marine observations

NWS forecasters need frequent, high-quality marine observations to examine conditions for forecast preparation and to verify their forecasts after they are produced. These observations are especially critical to the output of numerical weather models because large bodies of water have a profound impact on the weather. Other users rely on the observations and forecasts for commercial and recreational activities. To help meet these needs, the NWS's National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) in Hancock County, Mississippi operates a network of about 90 buoys and 60 land-based coastal observing systems (C-MAN). The stations measure wind speed, direction, and gust; barometric pressure; and air temperature. In addition, all buoy and some C-MAN stations measure sea surface temperature, and wave height and period. Conductivity and water current are measured at selected stations. All stations report on an hourly basis.

Supplemental weather observations are acquired through the United States Voluntary Observing Ship (VOS) program. It is organized for the purpose of obtaining weather and oceanographic observations from transiting ships. An international program under World Meteorological Organization (WMO) marine auspices, the VOS has 49 countries as participants. The United States program is the largest in the world, with nearly 1,000 vessels. Observations are taken by deck officers, coded in a special format known as the "ships synoptic code", and transmitted in real-time to the NWS. They are then distributed on national and international circuits for use by meteorologists in weather forecasting, by oceanographers, ship routing services, fishermen, and many others. The observations are then forwarded for use by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina.

Upper air observations

Upper air weather data is essential for weather forecasting and research. The NWS operates 92 radiosonde locations in North America and ten sites in the Caribbean. A small, expendable instrument package is suspended below a 2 m wide balloon filled with hydrogen or helium, then released daily at or shortly after 1100 and 2300 UTC, respectively. As the radiosonde rises at about 300 meters/minute (1,000 ft/min), sensors on the radiosonde measure profiles of pressure, temperature, and relative humidity. These sensors are linked to a battery-powered radio transmitter that sends the sensor measurements to a ground receiver. By tracking the position of the radiosonde in flight, information on wind speed and direction aloft is also obtained. The flight can last longer than two hours, and during this time the radiosonde can ascend above 35 km and drift more than 200 km from the release point. When the balloon has expanded beyond its elastic limit and bursts (about 6 m in diameter), a small parachute slows the descent of the radiosonde, minimizing the danger to lives and property. Data obtained during the flights is coded and disseminated, at which point it can be plotted on a Skew-T or Stuve diagram for analysis. In recent years, the National Weather Service has begun incorporating data from AMDAR in its numerical models (however, the raw data is not available to the public).

Event-driven products
The National Weather Service has developed a multi-tier concept for forecasting or alerting the public to all types of hazardous weather:
 * Outlook – Hazardous Weather Outlooks are issued daily by individual Weather Forecast Offices to address potentially hazardous weather or hydrologic events that may occur over the next seven days. The outlook will include information about the potential of convective thunderstorm activity (including the potential for severe thunderstorms), heavy rain or flooding, winter weather, and extremes of heat or cold. It is intended to provide information to those who need considerable lead time to prepare for the event, including notification to storm spotter groups and local emergency management agencies on the recommendation of activation during severe weather situations in areas prone to such events. Other outlooks are issued on an event-driven basis, such as the Flood Potential Outlook and Severe Weather Outlook.
 * Advisory – An advisory is issued when a hazardous weather or hydrologic event is occurring, imminent, or likely. Advisories are for less serious conditions than warnings, that cause significant inconvenience and if caution is not exercised, could lead to situations that may threaten life or property.
 * Watch – A watch is used when the risk of a hazardous weather or hydrologic event has increased significantly, but its occurrence, location or timing is still uncertain. It is intended to provide enough lead time so those who need to set their safety plans in motion can do so in advance if a forecasted event should occur. A watch means that hazardous weather is possible, but not imminent. People should have a plan of action in case a storm threatens and monitor various avenues that provide NOAA-disseminated data to listen for later information and possible warnings, especially when planning travel or outdoor activities.
 * Warning – A warning is issued when a hazardous weather or hydrologic event is occurring, imminent or likely. A warning means weather conditions pose a threat to life or property. People in the path of the storm need to take protective action.
 * Special Weather Statement (or Significant Weather Advisory) – A special weather statement is issued when something rare or unusual is occurring. These are usually triggered by sudden changes in meteorological conditions. The statements are to be taken as warnings for residents of a specific area. Significant Weather Advisories are often issued for storms not severe enough for Severe Thunderstorm Warnings, but for strong winds and small hail. The warning generally states that an area might be at risk for a slight weather danger, though not all weather statements are warnings. Other times, statements describe informative facts about a weather system (such as local snowfall).

Weather warnings and advisories
Short-fused weather warnings and advisories issued by local NWS forecast offices are generally less than 500 - 5000 sqmi in area. Warnings for severe local storms are intended to be issued preceding the arrival of severe weather at a particular locale by one hour or less; the NWS also issues warnings and advisories for various hydrological and non-hydrological events including floods, non-thunderstorm high winds, winter storms, intense heat or cold, fire weather and marine hazards, which vary in timepsan depending on the weather situation (inland and coastal warnings for tropical cyclones are issued by the National Hurricane Center (NHC), a guidance center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). The NWS defines a warning as a "hazardous weather or hydrologic event [that] is occurring, is imminent, or has a very high probability of occurring" and an advisory as "[highlighting] special weather conditions that are less serious than a warning [...] for events that may cause significant inconvenience, and if caution is not exercised, [..] could lead to situations that may threaten life and/or property." In earnest, they indicate that hazardous weather conditions are occurring that may pose a risk to life and property, and are intended to direct the general public to take immediate action and heed safety precautions; it also has the side purpose of directing emergency management personnel to be on standby in case the weather situation leads to property damage or casualties. Severe thunderstorm and flood warnings indicate that organized severe thunderstorms or flooding are occurring, whereas tornado warnings are issued if a storm is indicated to be producing an observed tornado or exhibits strong, low-level rotation.

The process of issuing a warning or advisory begins with observations of a hydrological or extreme weather event that is either occurring at present (through radar imagery, reports from local television and radio stations, or ground observations by local law enforcement, civil defense officials, media outlets or storm spotters) or is forecast to occur within 12 to 24 hours. If after collaboration a warning or advisory is deemed necessary, the Weather Forecast Office will generate a bulletin product via the Advance Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) and then disseminate the alert through various communication routes accessed by the media and various agencies, on the internet, to NOAA satellites, and on NOAA Weather Radio.

The product outlines the alert type, the issuing WFO, the sections of government subdivisions (counties, parishes, boroughs or independent cities) covered by the alert, and its time of expiration (based on the local time zone). Some products – particularly for severe thunderstorm, tornado and flood warnings – include a tag requesting Emergency Alert System activation to trigger public alert messages via television, radio stations, NOAA Weather Radio, and smartphone apps and messaging services. For local storm events, the warning or advisory product also outlines a meteorological summary of the most recent storm location or local storm report issued prior to the product's issuance (including the approximate area in statute miles and estimated speed and direction), associated hazards, impacts, municipalities and designated land areas (and, if applicable, highway mile markers) covered by the alert, and boilerplate action messages informing the public of safety precautions they need to take or advising them to be vigilant of any warnings or weather statements that may be issued by their local National Weather Service office. A statement may be issued as a follow-up message to a warning, watch, or emergency, which may update, extend, or cancel the previously issued product or be used as a notification of significant weather for which no type of alert is currently in effect for a given location or is expected to be in effect.

In situations where a forecaster indicates a significant threat of extremely severe and life-threatening weather with an ongoing local weather event, enhanced wording may be used to note the heightened threat by a significant local storm event. In April 2012, the NWS introduced the Impact Based Warning system at its Weather Forecast Offices in Wichita and Topeka, Kansas, and Springfield, St. Louis and Kansas City/Pleasant Hill, Missouri; the pilot project – which would expand to 80 Weather Forecast Offices overseen by the Central, Eastern, Southern and Western Region Headquarters by the spring of 2015 – incorporate message tags within the main body of the product describing the source of the hazard report, damage potential, and if applicable, radar indications or physical observations of tornadoes or the possibility of a tornado; hazards are also summarized at the close of the product text (describing estimated maximum hail size and wind gusts, and if applicable, if a storm has the potential to produce a tornado or in the event of a tornado warning, the basis of the warning or its damage threat). The wording "Particularly Dangerous Situation" (PDS), which originated by the Storm Prediction Center for use in tornado watch products during expected high-end severe weather outbreaks, is subjectively issued. It is occasionally issued with tornado warnings, normally if a large tornado capable of producing EF3 to EF5 damage or staying on the ground for long-duration – sometimes uninterrupted – paths has been reported (although a tornado emergency may be issued in such cases if the tornado is expected to track into a densely populated area). PDS warnings for other alerts occur with even less frequency, and their criteria varies depending on the alert type to which the wording is applied.

Until September 30, 2007, local offices of the National Weather Service issued warnings for severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, flash flooding and marine hazards using geopolitical boundaries. The implementation of storm-based warnings on October 1, 2007, saw alerts for these meteorological or hydrological threats be delineated by polygonal shapes in map-based weather hazard products, which outline the specified sections of government sub-jurisdictions that the warning covers, based on the projected path of a storm as determined by Doppler radar at the time of the warning's issuance; however, entire counties/parishes may sometimes be included in the warning polygon, especially if they encompass a small geographical area. Warnings can be expanded, contracted (by removing jurisdictions where SPC and NWS forecasters no longer consider there to be a viable threat of severe weather, in which case, the storm-based warning may take on a trapezoidal representation in map-based watch products) or canceled before their set time of expiration by local NWS offices.

The NWS also releases Experimental Severe Weather Impact products for use on social media accounts maintained by local forecast offices as well as the Enhanced Data Display (EDD), an experimental pilot project created by the Charleston, West Virginia office's WeatherReady Nation initiative. The product provides a graphical depiction of short-fuse warnings and watches (specifically, tornado and severe thunderstorm watches and warnings, and flash flood warnings), showing a map of the warning area (outlined as a red polygon) and locations (including communities and interstate highways) that will be impacted. For severe thunderstorm, tornado and flash flood warnings, the estimated population count of the warned area and approximate totals of public schools and hospitals within the warning area as well as the maximum forecast intensity of hail size, wind gusts and potential tornadoes; tornado warnings referenced in the impact product also denote whether the warning was issued based on radar indication or ground confirmation.

Product dissemination
NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards (NWR), promoted as "The Voice of the National Weather Service", is a special radio system that transmits uninterrupted weather watches, warnings and forecasts 24 hours a day directly from a nearby NWS office, with the broadcasts covering across 95–97% of the United States' population. The system – which is owned and operated by the NWS – consists of 1,030 transmitters, covering all 50 states; adjacent coastal waters; Puerto Rico; the U.S. Virgin Islands; and the U.S. Pacific Territories of American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. NWR requires a scanner or special radio receiver capable of picking up the signal. Individual NWR stations broadcast any one of seven allocated frequencies centered on 162 MHz (known collectively as "weather band") in the marine VHF radio band. In recent years, national emergency response agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Homeland Security have begun to take advantage of NWR's ability to efficiently reach a large portion of the U.S. population. When necessary, the system can also be used (in conjunction with the Emergency Alert System) to broadcast civil, natural and technological emergency and disaster alerts and information, in addition to those related to weather – hence the addition of the phrasing "All Hazards" to the name.

The NOAA Weather Wire Service (NWWS) is a satellite data collection and dissemination system operated by the National Weather Service, which was established in October 2000. Its purpose is to provide state and federal government, commercial users, media and private citizens with timely delivery of meteorological, hydrological, climatological and geophysical information. All products in the NWWS data stream are prioritized, with weather and hydrologic warnings receiving the highest priority (watches are next in priority). NWWS delivers severe weather and storm warnings to users in ten seconds or less from the time of their issuance, making it the fastest delivery system available. Products are broadcast to users via the AMC-4 satellite.

The Emergency Managers Weather Information Network (EMWIN) is a system designed to provide the emergency management community with access to a set of NWS warnings, watches, forecasts and other products at no recurring cost. It can receive data via radio, internet, or a dedicated satellite dish, depending on the needs and capabilities of the user.

NOAAPORT is a one-way broadcast communication system which provides NOAA environmental data and information in near real-time to NOAA and external users. This broadcast service is implemented by a commercial provider of satellite communications utilizing C band.

The agency's online service, Weather.gov, is a data rich website operated by the NWS that serves as a portal to hundreds of thousands of webpages and more than 300 different NWS websites. Through its homepage, users can access local forecasts by entering a place name in the main forecast search bar, view a rapidly updated map of active watches and warnings, and select areas related to graphical forecasts, national maps, radar displays, river and air quality data, satellite images and climate information. Also offered are XML data feeds of active watches and warnings, ASOS observations and digital forecasts for 5x5 kilometer (3 x 3 mile) grids. All of NWS local weather forecast offices operate their own region-tailored web pages, which provide access to current products and other information specific to the office's local area of responsibility. Weather.gov superseded the Interactive Weather Information Network (IWIN), the agency's early internet service which provided NWS data from the 1990s through the mid-2000s.

Since 1983, the NWS has provided external user access to weather information obtained by or derived from the U.S. Government through a collection of data communication line services called the Family of Services (FOS), which is accessible via dedicated telecommunications access lines in the Washington, D.C., area. All FOS data services are driven by the NWS Telecommunication Gateway computer systems located at NWS headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. Users may obtain any of the individual services from NWS for a one-time connection charge and an annual user fee.

Technology

The WSR-88D Doppler weather radar system, also called NEXRAD, was developed by the National Weather Service during the mid-1980s, and fully deployed throughout the majority of the United States by 1997. There are 158 such radar sites in operation in the U.S., its various territorial possessions and selected overseas locations. This technology, because of its high resolution and ability to detect intra-cloud motions, is now the cornerstone of the agency's severe weather warning operations.

National Weather Service meteorologists use an advanced information processing, display and telecommunications system, the Advance Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS), to complete their work. These workstations allow them to easily view a multitude of weather and hydrologic information, as well as compose and disseminate products. The NWS Environmental Modeling Center was one of the early users of the ESMF common modeling infrastructure. The Global Forecast System (GFS) is one of the applications that is built on the framework.

In 2016, the NWS significantly increased the computational power of its supercomputers, spending $44 million on two new supercomputers from Cray and IBM. This was driven by relatively lower accuracy of NWS' Global Forecast System (GFS) numerical weather prediction model, compared to other global weather models. This was most notable in the GFS model incorrectly predicting Hurricane Sandy turning out to sea until four days before landfall; while the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts' model predicted landfall correctly at seven days. The new supercomputers increased computational processing power from 776 teraflops to 5.78 petaflops.

Organization

As of 2016, the National Weather Service was organized as follows
 * Chief Information Officer
 * National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)
 * Aviation Weather Center (AWC)
 * Climate Prediction Center (CPC)
 * Environmental Modeling Center (EMC)
 * Weather Prediction Center (WPC)
 * Ocean Prediction Center (OPC)
 * NCEP Central Operations
 * Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC)
 * Storm Prediction Center (SPC)
 * National Hurricane Center (NHC)
 * Hurricane Specialist Unit (HSU)
 * Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch (TAFB)
 * Technical Support Branch (TSB)
 * Chief Financial Officer
 * Operational Systems
 * Hydrologic Development
 * Science and Technology
 * Programs and Plans
 * Meteorological Development Laboratory (MDL)
 * Climate, Water and Weather Services
 * 6 Regions (Eastern, Central, Southern, Western, Alaska & Pacific)
 * 122 Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs)
 * 21 Center Weather Service Units (CWSU)
 * 13 River Forecast Centers (RFC)
 * Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC)
 * National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC)
 * Spaceflight Meteorology Group (SMG)

Privatization and dismantling attempts
While respected as one of the premier weather organizations in the world, the National Weather Service has been perceived by some conservatives in 2005 as competing unfairly with the private sector. National Weather Service forecasts and data, being works of the federal government, are in the public domain and thus available to anyone for free under United States law. From time to time, the situation receives official review to ascertain if a leaner, more efficient approach may be had by some degree of privatization.

Aborted Byrne proposal, 1983
In 1983, the Reagan administration and NOAA administrator John V. Byrne announced a proposal to sell all of the agency's weather satellites at auction with the intent to repurchase the weather data from private contractors that would acquire the satellites. Under the proposal, 30% of NOAA's workforce would be reviewed for potential layoffs, and certain specialty forecasts of agricultural and economic importance would be eliminated. NOAA also proposed outsourcing weather observation stations, NOAA Weather Radio, and computerized surface analysis to private companies. The proposal was met with negative reactions among the public, members of Congress, and consumer advocacy groups (including most notably, Ralph Nader), objecting to the possibility of weather information intended for the public domain being sold to private entities that would profit from the sale of the data. The proposal to sell the satellite network failed in a Congressional vote, while other aspects of the proposal to dismantle portions of NOAA's agencies were eventually scuttled.

Failed Santorum proposal, 2005
In 2005, Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum introduced the National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005, a bill which would have prohibited the NWS from freely distributing weather data. The bill was widely criticized by users of the NWS's services, especially by emergency management officials relying on the National Weather Service for information during fires, flooding, or severe weather. Groups such as the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association condemned the bill's restrictions on weather forecasting as threatening the safety of air traffic, noting that 40% of all aviation accidents are at least partially weather-related. The bill attracted no cosponsors, and died in committee during the 2005 Congressional session.

Accuracy problems
Critics such as University of Washington professor Cliff Mass have claimed that NWS forecasts are not as accurate as they could be, and that this has resulted in inaccurate daily weather forecasts and dangerously bad predictions concerning the location and intensity of extreme weather events like blizzards and hurricanes. In 2016, the British Met Office, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), and the Northwest Regional Modeling Consortium in Seattle have been cited as producing more accurate predictions in certain circumstances. According to critics, causes include:
 * Lack of sufficient computing power to run simulations known to be better (including higher-resolution simulations and "ensemble" forecasts where multiple runs tweak variables slightly to detect low-confidence simulations)
 * Not using techniques shown to improve accuracy by recent academic research
 * Not assimilating data from all available sources, such as TAMDAR data from commercial airliners. (Due to budget cuts, this could not be purchased from Panasonic Weather Solutions on an ongoing basis.)
 * Lack of updated equipment on weather satellites
 * Lack of focus on a small number of high-quality models compared to the Met Office and the ECMWF Integrated Forecast System
 * Organizational stovepiping and turf wars
 * Resistance to change by powerful employee unions

The Next Generation Global Prediction System project at NWS aims to address some of these criticisms by running a unified high-quality model that takes advantage of more recent research results. In 2016, the NOAA announced to develop The Next Generation Global Prediction System.

title: National Weather Service


text:
Oblique Strategies

Oblique Strategies (subtitled Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas) is a card-based method for promoting creativity jointly created by musician/artist Brian Eno and multimedia artist Peter Schmidt, first published in 1975. Physically, it takes the form of a deck of 7 x printed cards in a black box. Each card offers a challenging constraint intended to help artists (particularly musicians) break creative blocks by encouraging lateral thinking.

Origin and history
In 1970, Peter Schmidt created "The Thoughts Behind the Thoughts", a box containing 55 sentences letterpress printed onto disused prints that accumulated in his studio, which is still in Eno's possession. Eno, who had known Schmidt since the late 1960s, had been pursuing a similar project himself, which he had handwritten onto a number of bamboo cards and given the name "Oblique Strategies" in 1974. There was a significant overlap between the two projects, and so, in late 1974, Schmidt and Eno combined them into a single pack of cards and offered them for general sale. The set went through three limited edition printings before Schmidt suddenly died in early 1980, after which the card decks became rather rare and expensive. Sixteen years later software pioneer Peter Norton convinced Eno to let him create a fourth edition as Christmas gifts for his friends (not for sale, although they occasionally come up at auction). Eno's decision to revisit the cards and his collaboration with Norton in revising them is described in detail in his 1996 book A Year with Swollen Appendices. With public interest in the cards undiminished, in 2001 Eno once again produced a new set of Oblique Strategies cards. The number and content of the cards vary according to the edition. In May 2013 a limited edition of 500 boxes, in burgundy rather than black, was issued.

The story of Oblique Strategies, along with the content of all the cards, exhaustive history and commentary, is documented in a website widely acknowledged as the authoritative source and put together by musician and educator Gregory Alan Taylor.

The text of Schmidt's "The Thoughts Behind the Thoughts" was published by Mindmade Books in 2012.

Design and use
Each card contains a gnomic suggestion, aphorism or remark which can be used to break a deadlock or dilemma situation. A few are specific to music composition; others are more general. For example:
 * Use an old idea.
 * State the problem in words as clearly as possible.
 * Only one element of each kind.
 * What would your closest friend do?
 * What to increase? What to reduce?
 * Are there sections? Consider transitions.
 * Try faking it!
 * Honour thy error as a hidden intention.
 * Ask your body.
 * Work at a different speed.

From the introduction to the 2001 edition: "These cards evolved from separate observations of the principles underlying what we were doing. Sometimes they were recognised in retrospect (intellect catching up with intuition), sometimes they were identified as they were happening, sometimes they were formulated.

They can be used as a pack, or by drawing a single card from the shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation. In this case the card is trusted even if its appropriateness is quite unclear..."

Cultural impact
References to Oblique Strategies exist in popular culture, notably in the film Slacker, in which a character offers passers-by cards from a deck. Strategies mentioned include "Honor thy error as a hidden intention", "Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify", "Not building a wall; making a brick", "Repetition is a form of change", and one which came to be seen as a summary of the film's ethos (though it was not part of the official set of Oblique Strategies), "Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy." This line was quoted in the 1994 song "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" by R.E.M., who also mentioned Oblique Strategies in their 1998 song "Diminished" from the album Up. The Oblique Strategies are also referenced in comic 1018, "Oblique Angles", of popular web comic Questionable Content.

Other musicians inspired by Oblique Strategies include the British band Coldplay, said to have used the cards when recording their 2008 Brian Eno-produced album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends and French band Phoenix, who used the cards when recording their 2009 album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. German musician/composer Blixa Bargeld has a similar navigation system, called Dave. In response to their song "Brian Eno", from their album Congratulations, MGMT has said they had a deck of Oblique Strategies in the studio, but they "don't know if [they] used them correctly." The band Bauhaus have used the cards for the composition of their songs. The B-52's used them in the studio when recording their first album.

They were most famously used by Eno during the recording of David Bowie's Berlin triptych of albums (Low, "Heroes", Lodger). Stories suggest they were used during the recording of instrumentals on "Heroes" such as "Sense of Doubt" and were used more extensively on Lodger ("Fantastic Voyage", "Boys Keep Swinging", "Red Money"). They were used again on Bowie's 1995 album Outside, which Eno was involved with as a writer, producer and musician. Carlos Alomar, who worked with Eno and Bowie on all these albums, was a fan of using the cards, later saying "at the Center for Performing Arts at the Stevens Institute of Technology, where I teach, on the wall are Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies cards. And when my students get a mental block, I immediately direct them to that wall."

The Oblique Strategies cards deck is featured in Italian comics artist Igort's work Japanese Notebooks: A Journey to the Empire of Signs (Chronicle Books, 2017; original Italian edition: Quaderni giapponesi. Un viaggio nell'impero dei segni, Cononino Press, 2015).

The football team and total work of art A.S. Velasca founded by the artist Wolfgang Natlacen used the Oblique Strategies during an official football match.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Oblique Strategies


text:
Free German Youth

The Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend; FDJ) is a youth movement in Germany. Formerly, it was the official youth movement of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.

The organization was meant for young adults, both male and female, between the ages of 14 and 25 and comprised about 75% of the young adult population of former East Germany. In 1981–1982, this meant 2.3 million members. After joining the Thälmann Pioneers, which was for school children between ages 6 to 13, East German youths would usually join the FDJ.

The FDJ was intended to be the "reliable assistant and fighting reserve of the Worker's Party", while Socialist Unity Party of Germany was a member of the National Front and had representatives in the People's Chamber. The political and ideological goal of the FDJ was to influence every aspect of life of young people in the GDR, distribute Marxist–Leninist teachings and promote communist behavior. Membership in the FDJ was nominally voluntary. However, those who did not join lost access to organized holidays, and found it difficult (if not impossible) to be admitted to universities, pursue chosen careers, etc. The majority of youths who refused to join did so for religious reasons.

While the movement was intended to indoctrinate East Germany's young adults with the Marxist–Leninist ideology, it did not concentrate on this to the exclusion of other activities. It arranged thousands of holidays for young adults through its Jugendtourist agency and ran discos and open-air rock concerts. The Festival of Political Songs was an officially sponsored event from 1970 to 1990.

Establishment in 1946 in the Soviet Occupation Zone
The FDJ had its origins in the months following the end of the Second World War and it was formally founded on 7 March 1946 under the leadership of a youthful Erich Honecker. The FDJ was initially developed by the communists as ostensibly a non-political, 'national' youth organisation, which would function in all four zones of occupied Germany. The FDJ was conceived to be a 'free' and 'democratic' united youth organisation, where young antifascists would cooperate in order to rebuild their homeland under the name of the 'Free German Youth' (Freie Deutsche Jugend). The name of the organisation was inspired by the 'Free German Youth' movements formed by young German antifascists in Prague, Paris and London, before the Second World War. Talk of socialism or that the FDJ was to be disproportionately composed of German communists were absent from the FDJ's initial conception.

Open to those between the ages of 14 and 25, the FDJ was crucial to preparing young East Germans for mature adult life along an officially approved route of school, vocational training, and entry into the party and officeholding. The FDJ was responsible for the socialist indoctrination of the rising generation of young East Germans. FDJ members were expected to participate in the 'school year', an ideological programme, which aimed to develop a significant group of well-trained cadres suitable for future employment in the SED apparatus. The FDJ were willing to overlook previous allegiance to Nazism and offer opportunities for career and social advancement to young adults in exchange for genuine commitment to the FDJ and its ideals on political, working, educational and leisure rights. Additionally, the FDJ aimed to increase the productivity of young East German workers through sponsored 'youth brigades', during the 1940s.

As the sole official representative of East German youth, the FDJ's main objective was to win over the hearts and minds of young East Germans to socialism, through the Marxist–Leninist ideals of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). During the 1940s, an emphasis on providing a 'happy youth life' for young East Germans increasingly made the FDJ attractive to the youths. Organised activities, including sports and dance events, 'social evenings' (Heimabende), concerts, hikes and trips to the cinema, among other activities, aimed to provide leisure for young East Germans without the means to otherwise engage in pastimes. In 1946 and 1947, the responsibility of organising leisure activities predominantly rested with local FDJ groups, existing in towns and villages.

The FDJ also possessed its own publishing house (Verlag Neues Leben) and ran a number of newspapers; a daily newspaper (Junge Welt), a journal for FDJ functionaries (Junge Generation) and a student newspaper (FORUM). Starting in 1952, the FDJ also began publishing two Sorbian language magazines, Chorhoj Měra and Plomjo, for Sorbian members.

The FDJ in the GDR
The FDJ increasingly developed into an instrument of communist rule and became a member of the 'democratic bloc' in 1950. However, the FDJ's focus of 'happy youth life', which had characterised the 1940s, was increasingly marginalised following Walter Ulbricht's emphasis of the 'accelerated construction of socialism' at the 4th Parliament and a radicalisation of SED policy in July 1952. In turn, a more severe anti-religious agenda, whose aim was to obstruct the Church youths' work, grew within the FDJ, ultimately reaching a high point in mid-April 1953 when the FDJ newspaper Junge Welt reported on details of the 'criminal' activities of the 'illegal' Junge Gemeinden. FDJ gangs were sent to church meetings to heckle those inside and school tribunals interrogated or expelled students who refused to join the FDJ for religious reasons.

As an affiliated organisation of the SED party and government, the FDJ became targets of demonstrators in the lead up to the 1953 Uprising. Growing popular unrest caused members of the FDJ to flee to the West. By 1953, the FDJ was in a state of turmoil with many members and officials joining in with the strikes and demonstrations.

On 25 April 1957, at the 16th session of the FDJ, the central council declared the FDJ as an official 'socialist' youth organisation. The FDJ was the GDR's second most important mass organisation, after the FDGB. The FDJ established a political directive that, in theory, made it an omnipresent force in all aspects of 'youth life' in the GDR. FDJ organisations were found in all areas of East German society, albeit in widely varying numbers, from schools and universities, collective farms, shops and residential areas to the army and the secret police. As the only officially approved youth organisation, the FDJ quickly developed a huge bureaucratic apparatus and acquired generous financial support from state resources.

The FDJ served as a general training ground for functionaries of the SED, the economy and the government. As the sole official representative of GDR youth, the FDJ was vital to the upbringing of young people as socialist personalities. Measures were employed in an attempt to encourage a sense of community spirit of working for a large whole and a better future. According to official prescription, this involved raising them to accept socialist ideals, to acquire a high level of knowledge and vocational skills, to participate actively in official economic and social programmes, to commit themselves to the cause of peace, and to participate in the military training programmes.

In 1952, there was an attempt to militarise the FDJ through the creation of a paramilitary service. On 17 August 1961 the FDJ issued a 'Call to Arms' in a further attempt to encourage young men to join the armed forces. In schools, the Hans-Beimler contests provided a form of military sports education for pupils in the eighth grade. Military education and training received an added impetus by the FDJ in the late 1970s and early 1980s as a result of the breakdown of détente between the superpowers.

The FDJ exercised significant influence over the selection process of universities. Membership and participation within the FDJ were definitive criteria during the allocation of university places. Alongside the Thälmann Pioneers, the FDJ was involved in controlling and disciplining rebellious students through denunciation and spying.

After the construction of the Berlin Wall, the FDJ were involved in obstructing the flow of western media into the GDR. FDJ units were dispatched among local communities, who chanted the names of known listeners to western programmes or stuck posters on their doors. FDJ members also demanded that license holders dismantled TV aerials that pointed westwards, which even led to FDJ members climbing onto the roofs and sawing off offending antennae.

During the SED's reforms on youth policy in the 1960s, Ulbricht attacked the FDJ's unimaginative approach to young people, instead advocating a measure of relaxation of the rigid controls imposed on young people in the FDJ. The focus on providing leisure activities for East German youth returned and the organisation of major cultural events by the FDJ, such as the 'German meeting' (Deutschlandtreffen) increased, ultimately reaching a highpoint at the 1964 festival on the public holiday of Whitsuntide. Thousands of young East and West Germans gathered in East Berlin in a relaxed atmosphere where they danced, listened to jazz and rock music and exchanged views on political and personal matters. In 1965, the FDJ held a musicians' talent competition across the GDR with the final to occur in Berlin although the event ultimately degenerated into a scene of chaos. By the 1970s, well-organised mass parades and mass demonstrations on the occasion of public holidays such as May Day in which members of the FDJ would actively participate, marching in uniform and carrying official banners became a common occurrence.

The FDJ possessed additional measures to mobilise young East German people. The FDJ aimed to make physical culture and sport a form of popular mass activity. The 'Joint Sports Programme' organised by the FDJ, the DTSB, and the FDGB, encouraged not only physical relaxation but also the competitive spirit of participation. The children's "Spartakiads", also organised by the FDJ, alongside the Thälman Pioneers and other mass organisations, were staged in the schools, localities and districts biannually at regional and national level in order to stimulate a high level of performance and help sports functionaries to identify talented youths who could benefit from further development in East German sports schools and training centres.

Another objective of the FDJ was to ensure that individual students experienced holiday camp or carried out some activity during their holidays in a pupils' brigade. Holiday trips for hundreds of thousands of young adults were arranged annually by the FDJ's tourist agency, Jugendtourist. Free-time activities were organised as part of the 'Young Talents' movement and in the tens of thousands of youth clubs and discos. By 1983 about one million of the GDR's 2.2 million pupils attended a holiday camp and 110,000 pupils over the age of fourteen engaged in 'voluntary productive work' in a FDJ's pupils' brigade in their home area.

The FDJ in West Germany
In October 1947 the 'Berlin-FDJ' was legalised by the Allies. However, the 'West-FDJ' enjoyed little success in a hostile political environment. The FDJ's existence alongside three other youth organisations in the Allied Occupation Zone weakened the presence of the FDJ in Berlin in comparison to the five Länder (states) of the Soviet Occupation Zone, where the FDJ had been established more than eighteen months earlier. In November 1948, only 3 per cent of the city's youth population were FDJ members in comparison to an average of 17 per cent of 14- to 25-year-olds in the East German Länder. The weakened presence of the 'West-FDJ' dashed the SED's hopes for a monopoly control over youth politics in Germany. On 26 June 1951 the 'West-FDJ' was banned, although this ban did not extend to West Berlin on account of its quadripartite division. After a protracted legal battle, the ban came into effect in 1954 when the FDJ's appeal was rejected by the West Germany's constitutional court.

In 1952, Phillip Müller, a member of the FDJ, was shot by the North Rhine-Westphalia Police during a demonstration in Essen against West German re-armament. Afterwards, large numbers of the FDJ's membership were imprisoned.

Democratic Centralism
The FDJ's basic organizational structures were established at the 3rd Parliament in Leipzig in June 1949. Just like the SED and mass organizations in the GDR, the FDJ was grounded on the principle of democratic centralism, a principle first introduced by Lenin to bring order and discipline to the Bolshevik Party during the Russian Revolution. Accordingly, the FDJ was run on a strictly hierarchical and centralized basis. Each organizational unit was directly subordinate to the next-highest organizational body and instructions issued by the central FDJ leadership were binding for all lower-level organizations.

Central Council
The highest organ of the FDJ was its Parliament, which convened once every three or four years during the 1950s and 1960s. It was only during these conventions that major alterations to the FDJ's statute could be made. In the interim period, the Central Council (ZR) guided the FDJ affairs, assuming a similar role to that of the SED's Central Committee (ZK). ZR members were elected by the Parliament and met in sessions (Tagungen) held three or four times a year. The ZR's tasks included issuing resolutions on all aspects of the FDJ's work, confirming the candidates selected to take up the FDJ's seats in the East German parliament (the Volkskammer or 'People's Chamber'), and overseeing the youth organization's finances.

ZR Secretariat
The real executive power, however, lay in the hands of the ZR Secretariat, perhaps the FDJ's nearest equivalent to the SED Politburo. Elected by the Central Council, the ZR Secretariat shaped most of the political and organisational direction of the FDJ. It was responsible for cadre selection within the organization and directly instructed the Bezirk (regional) leaderships. Weekly meetings of the secretariat, generally chaired by the FDJ first secretary, were attended by the various ZR secretaries, each of whom responsible for a certain area of FDJ work (such as higher education or international affairs).

The ZR Büro was, in theory, the fourth central leadership organ of the FDJ. It was created at the 3rd Parliament in 1949. It incorporated a wider range of youth representatives, including the leader of the government department for 'youth questions' and representatives of the bloc parties such as the CDU and the LDPD (23). However, it had no real power and was little more than an adjunct to the far more important ZR secretariat.

Bezirk and Kreis
The sub-structure below the FDJ's highest echelons, consisted of three main bodies organised in strictly hierarchical level: Bezirk (regional) leadership organizations, Kreis (district) leadership organizations, and 'basic units' (Grundeinheiten). At both Bezirk and Kreis level, the leadership structures essentially replicated those in place at the highest level. The 'delegates' conference' (Delegiertenkonferenz) was the lower-level equivalent to the FDJ Parliament, meeting twice every five years at Bezirk level and once every two years in the districts. The Bezirk and Kreis secretariats constituted the real seats of decision-making power at regional and district level respectively. The Kreis secretariat was the key organization linking the last of the full-time functionaries to the 'grass roots' of the youth organization, as represented by the basic unit, which constituted the FDJ's 'nerve centre' in schools, universities, factories, farms, and residential areas. It was responsible for organizing the monthly 'membership meetings' of local FDJ members, where organizational and (less frequently) political issues were discussed.

Basic Units
In most cases, the basic units were subdivided into the smallest organizational division of all, the 'group' (which might consist, for example, of the FDJ members in a certain class at a school or in a particular work brigade in a factory). In the case of the larger basic units (those with more than 100 members), specialized intermediary bodies—Abteilungsorganisationen ('branch organizations')—were inserted into the organizational hierarchy, serving as a bridge to the FDJ groups below them. At these lower levels of the youth organization, only a small minority of functionaries—such as the first secretaries of some of the larger basic units—were full-time. The vast majority were volunteers drawn, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, from the ranks of 'ordinary' FDJ members. By the early fifties, the FDJ's transition to a 'party youth organization' was—on paper at least—almost complete.

List of chairmen of the Free German Youth
! colspan=9| First Secretary of the Central Council of the Free German Youth Erster Sekretär des Zentralrates der Freien Deutschen Jugend
 * -align="center"

Die Wende
At the end of November 1989, the FDJ leadership led by Eberhard Aurich was dismissed by the 13th session of the Central Council. At the end of January 1990, during the XIII Parliament the FDJ gave itself a new statute, defining itself as a "left federation" which stood for an independent GDR as a "socialist alternative on German soil", and no longer as a "helper and combat reserve of the party". The Junge Welt later spoke of a "failure of the organisation" because "the concentrated presence of former full-time officials" prevented a "radical break with the old FDJ". After the Peaceful Revolution in the GDR, from November 1989 to November 1990, the number of members dropped from 2.3 million to 22,000. The FDJ contested the only multiparty election in East Germany in March 1990, as part of the Alternative Jugendliste (Alternative Youth List), an electoral list consisting of four leftwing youth organizations. However the list only gained 14,615 votes (0.12%) and no seats.

After unification
After German reunification in October 1990, the FDJ quickly lost nearly all of its remaining membership, shrinking in mid-1991 to 7,000 members and in 1994 to a maximum of 300 members, dwindling further in 2003 to about 150. The 7,500 full-time employees of the FDJ were all released by the end of 1991 and the remaining staff handled the FDJ facilities and structures. The assets of the FDJ were placed under the administration of the Treuhandanstalt. Its youth clubs and vacation resorts were redistributed, closed, or sold. The reformed SED, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), founded its own new youth organization, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Junge GenossInnen, and no longer recognized the FDJ.

However, the FDJ continues to maintain a titular existence to this day. It has reverted to a strict Marxist–Leninist political line, which is exemplified by a positive reading of East German history and the rejection of the federal republic and its annexation of the GDR. The FDJ remains independent, but cooperates with political groups such as the KPD (Ost) and the Arbeiterbund für den Wiederaufbau der KPD (Workers' Union for the Reconstruction of the KPD). Currently, the FDJ has its headquarters in the office section of the Karl-Liebknecht-Haus.

The former newspaper of the FDJ, the Junge Welt, still exists as a small Marxist newspaper, but is now independent from the FDJ. The present newspaper of the FDJ is named the Fanfare, and it is published irregularly.

title: Free German Youth


text:
NRDC

NRDC may refer to:

 * Natural Resources Defense Council, an American environmental group
 * National Research Development Corporation, a UK company set up to license government research to industrial partners
 * NRDC Equity Partners, an American retail holding company
 * NATO Rapid Deployable Corps – Italy, an Italian military formation.

title: NRDC