Late Career
For the next four years, Simpson navigated NHRP through the shoals of bureaucratic uncertainty. Once NHRP was assured longevity in 1959, Simpson left the Project to finish his doctorate in meteorology at the University of Chicago, studying under his friend Dr. Herbert Riehl. On completing his degree, he returned to Washington to become the Weather Bureau's Deputy Director of Research (Severe Storms), where he helped establish the National Severe Storms Project (later to become the National Severe Storms Laboratory). In 1961, he obtained a National Science Foundation grant to study seeding hurricanes with silver iodide. He put together an experiment using NHRP and United States Navy aircraft to seed Hurricane Esther. The encouraging results led the Weather Bureau and the Navy to start Project STORMFURY in 1962, with Simpson as Director. He headed up the Project for the next three years, including the seeding of Hurricane Beulah in 1963. He married Joanne Malkus in 1965 and persuaded her to take over as Director of STORMFURY for the next two years as he became Director of Operations for the Weather Bureau.
In 1967, Simpson became Deputy Director of the National Hurricane Center (NHC). Simpson reorganized NHC, making it separate from the Miami Weather Bureau office, and established the position of 'hurricane specialist' for NHC's senior forecasters. He directed NHC from 1968 to 1974, during which time he co-developed the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale with Herbert Saffir, established a dedicated satellite unit at NHC, studied neutercanes, and began issuing advisories on subtropical storms. His controversial remarks to Vice President Spiro Agnew in the wake of Hurricane Camille led to an upgrade of the Air Force and Navy Hurricane Hunter squadrons, and persuaded NOAA to improve their hurricane research aircraft.
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