New National Hurricane Center Director Named
Bill Read was named Director of the National Hurricane Center on Friday. He will be in charge of NOAA’s Tropical Prediction Center, which includes the National Hurricane Center and two other divisions. Those other divisions include the Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch and the Technical Support Branch. The TAFB provides support for satellite and radar analysis. The TSB provides support for the Center’s computer and communications functions and develops new techiniques for the analysis and forecasting of tropical systems.
Read has been the acting Director since August. Read, a 30 year veteran of the National Weather Service, was the Meteorologist in Charge of the National Weather Service Houston/Galveston. He has seen all of the restructuring of the NWS through its modernization process, which occurred in the 1990s. He brings successful relationships with emergency management as one of his main qualities.
The Tropical Prediction Center had a tumultuous year in 2007. Max Mayfield resigned as Director after seven years of strong, calm and reassuring leadership during one of the worst onslaughts of hurricanes in Atlantic history. Max was replaced by long time NWS Southern Region Director Bill Proenza who immediately created controversy by making critical remarks about the aging QuikScat satellite. Some forecasters at the Center signed a petition for his ouster, saying that he had undermined the public’s confidence in the Center’s forecasts. He was removed in August.
Category: Pre-November 2010 Posts