History
The Storm Prediction Center began in 1952 in Washington, D.C. as SELS (Severe Local Storms Unit), a special unit of forecasters in the Weather Bureau. In 1954, the unit moved to Kansas City. SELS began issuing convective outlooks in 1955, and began issuing radar summaries every three hours in 1960; with the increased duties of radar summaries this unit became the National Severe Storms Forecast Center (NSSFC) in 1966.
In 1968 the National Severe Storms Forecast Center began issuing status reports on watches, and in 1971 the agency made their first computerized data transmission. On April 2, 1982 the first particularly dangerous situation watch was issued. Two new products were introduced in 1986: the Day 2 Convective Outlook and the Mesoscale Discussion.
The National Severe Storms Forecast Center remained located in Kansas City, Missouri until October 1995, when it moved to Norman, Oklahoma and was renamed the Storm Prediction Center. In 1998, the Center began issuing the National Fire Weather Outlook. The Day 3 Convective Outlook was first issued on an experimental basis in 2000, and was made an official product in 2001. From 1995 to 2006 the Storm Prediction Center was housed at University of Oklahoma Westheimer Airport, in the same building as the National Severe Storms Laboratory, after which it moved to the National Weather Center.
The Storm Prediction Center continues operations out of the National Weather Center building as of 2011.
Read more about this topic: Storm Prediction Center
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—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)