The Office of Weather and Air Quality (OWAQ) helps improve weather forecast information and products for the Nation by supporting high-impact weather and air quality research that ultimately leads to improvements in NOAA's operational forecasts that help save lives and reduce property damage.

OWAQ supports research conducted by NOAA scientists and partners that focus on high-impact weather and air quality research, including hurricanes, severe thunderstorms, heavy precipitation, and air pollution, and the social science associated with how the Public processes this information and reacts. 

To make holistic advances, OWAQ-supported research includes collecting and analyzing observations to improve the understanding of high-impact weather events, improving numerical weather and air quality forecast models, research to improve understanding of atmospheric processes associated with high-impact weather and air quality events, and forecasting and analysis techniques to improve operational forecasts.