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You are at NWS Houston/Galveston »
About Our Office
About Our Office
Staff Information:
- The latest staff roster and a pictorial history of the weather geeks...
 Current Staff Roster- Staff Picture (Dec 2001)
- Staff Picture (Dec 1999)
- Staff Picture (late 1998)
- Staff Picture (late 1997)
- Staff Picture (circa 1996)
- Staff Picture (circa 1993)
A History of Our Office:
The Houston/Galveston National Weather Service office has a long history of serving
the public. Before the establishment of a joint office to serve the citizens of
Southeast Texas, there were two separate offices in the region - one in Houston and
the other on Galveston Island.
First a little background. Back in 1870, the U.S. Congress created the Public Weather
Bureau as a part of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. The first weather office in Texas (and
one of the first in the Nation) was established in Galveston on April 19, 1871. The
office was originally located on the Strand and was moved several times in the downtown
area for the next 20 or so years. The Galveston Weather Bureau office was moved to the
Levy Building on Market Street in June of 1898. It remained there until the Great Storm
of 1900. After the Great Storm, the office was moved to the Trust Building until the
mid 1940s. In 1946, the office was moved to what would be its final location, the U.S.
Post Office Building on Rosenberg Avenue. In 1960, one of the first WSR-57, Weather
Surveillence Radars was installed at this location. This radar, and other like it
throughout the country, served as the backbone of a severe weather detection network for
over 30 years. Shortly after the installation of the radar, the Galveston office was
the site of the first live television broadcast of a hurricane (by Dan Rather at CBS)
in September of 1961 when Hurricane Carla struck the Texas coast. As a part of the
NWS Modernization effort, all services of the Galveston office were transferred to the
Houston office in April of 1994; and the Galveston office was vacated and the weather
radar removed from the Post Office Building in October 1995.
The history of the Houston office can be traced as far back as 1881, when a
cotton station (in an unknown location in Harris County) was used as a base for
taking weather observations. As the city of Houston grew, the need for a
Weather Bureau Office resulted in the establishment of the Houston office
downtown on September 16, 1909. Between 1909 and 1968, the Houston Weather
Bureau office occupied three separate locations in the downtown area - the
Stewart Building (at Preston and Fannin Streets), the Shell Builiding (at
Texas and Fannin Streets) and its last location downtown at the Federal
Building (at Franklin and Fannin Streets). The expanding needs of the old
Weather Bureau forced a move out of the downtown area. In 1970, the National
Weather Service moved the Houston area office to Alvin (southwest of Houston).
Around that same time, as a part of the move out of downtown, the weather
observations part of operations moved to the its now current site at Houston
Intercontinental Airport in northern Harris county. The NWS Houston office's
move to its current location in League City was completed in October 1990.
As a part of the Modernization and Reorganization of the NWS, the two separate
weather offices were combined into one office to not only serve those communities,
but those of all of Southeast Texas.
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