Name: James Kaplan

Q: Where in NOAA do you work now?
A: The National Weather Service Warning and Forecast Office Chicago (Romeoville) IL.

Q: When did you begin your work with NOAA?
A: March of 1970, at the ESSA Weather Bureau Aiport Station, Madison, Wisconsin. Only 100 or so miles from here, but what a circuitous route I took to get from Madison to Romeoville: Madison-WSFO Minneapolis-WSFO Topeka-WSFO Des Moines-UW Madison-Des Moines-WSFO San Francisco-WSFO Denver-NWSHQ-NMC (Now NCEP) QPB-Chicago.

Join the Weather Bureau and see the U.S.A.

Q: Looking back, what events stand out as the most memorable during your time with NOAA?
A: Some great forecasts of disasters such as Hurricane Andrew and the 1993 "Storm of the Century" ...and the lives saved by those forecasts. These could probably never have been pulled off in 1970 when I started with the limited technology of the time, notwithstanding the dedicated and experienced forecasters of the time. See next section.

Q: From your point of view, what have been the most significant changes NOAA has experienced during the past 30 years?
A:  In my field of Meteorology the advances in capabilities of Geostationary satellites and the advent of computer capability to run much more complex models have been the biggest change for the good. The advent of mini-computers (AFOS) was a large step forward in office level productivity in the late '70s and early '80s as was the arrival of PC's and many PC based application later in the '80s and on into the '90s. The arrival of AWIPS in the late '90s has finally begun to integrate all data sets on a common platform, thus automating a critical part of data processing that formerly had to be done by the human brain.

This page updated on: Monday, 07-Jan-2002 21:41:56 GMT
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