557th Weather Wing

On March 27, 2015, the Air Force Weather Agency was officially re-designated as the 557th Weather Wing. As such, the 557th WW stands alone as the Air Force’s premier weather wing, providing world-class weather support and decision superiority to commanders and warfighters to “win today's and tomorrow's fight." This change came about as a result of an Air Force organization management headquarters review announced in 2014. The 557th WW reports directly to the 12th Air Force under Air Combat Command.

 

The Mission of the 557th WW is to maximize America’s power through the exploitation of timely, accurate, and relevant weather information; anytime, everywhere.

 

The 557th WW Strategic Vision is world-class Airmen, the Department of Defense’s provider of choice for innovative, actionable and authoritative terrestrial and space weather information to win the fight…today and tomorrow.

 

Headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska., the 557th WW is comprised of nearly 1,500 personnel, the 1st Weather Group as well as the 2d Weather Group, 11 squadrons, five detachments and five operating locations. Eighteen of the 557th WW units are geographically separated and strategically placed to optimize their longstanding joint, combatant command, coalition, allied and interagency partnerships to achieve U.S. objectives.

 

The 1st WXG is comprised of six operational weather squadrons – 15th OWS at Scott AFB, Illinois; 17th OWS at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii; 21st OWS at Kapaun, Germany; 25th OWS at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona; 26th OWS at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana and 28th OWS at Shaw AFB, South Carolina -- and operating location OL-K at the Radar Operations Center, Norman, Oklahoma.

 

The 1st WXG mission is to protect over a million Airmen, soldiers and family members and almost a trillion dollars in DOD assets around the world by delivering over 500,000 accurate, timely and relevant weather forecasts and warnings each year. Additionally, the Air Force weather team at the interagency Radar Operations Center in Oklahoma supports global radar sites in the Next Generation Radar Program. Finally, the 1st WXG continues a decade-long tradition of expertise in virtual, collaborative training environments and provides state-of-the-art network security with the best trainers and communicators in the Air Force.

 

The 2d WXG is headquartered at Offutt AFB, Neb., and is composed of over 500 active duty military, civilians, and contractors operating at nine operating locations across three continents. The 2d Systems Operations Squadron, 16th Weather Squadron and 2d Weather Squadron are each located at Offutt AFB, Neb. The 14th Weather Squadron is headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina, collocated with the Federal Climate Complex, and the 2d Combat Weather Systems Squadron is located at Hurlburt Field, Florida.

 

The mission of the 2d WXG is five unique squadrons optimizing joint military and intelligence readiness and operations. The 2d WXG is the 557th WW’s production center, providing specialized airpower — global, terrestrial, space and climatological environmental intelligence — to the joint force, defense agencies, Defense Department senior leaders, select members of the intelligence community, interagency partners and allied nations. The 2d WXG operates, sustains and maintains the Air Force’s strategic weather high performance computing capability, making them a critical 24/7 reachback node for collection, processing and dissemination of terrestrial and space weather data.

 

The 2d WXG is the only Air Force unit that evaluates, integrates, trains, deploys and maintains the tactical components of the Air Force Weather Weapon System. The 2nd WXG stands ready to inform decision makers at the tactical, operational and strategic levels with the best and latest environmental information — from the mud to the sun!

 

The 557th WW traces its heritage back to a meteorological service unit in the Army Signal Corps during World War I with its operations in France. Its official lineage began in 1943 with the activation of the Army Air Forces Weather Wing in Asheville, North Carolina. Since 1991, the unit has reported directly to the Air Force Director of Weather at the Pentagon, when it was known as the Air Weather Service, located at Scott AFB. In 1997, AWS was re-designated as AFWA, which also merged the mission of Air Force Global Weather Center at Offutt AFB. On March 27, 2015, AFWA was re-designated as the 557th WW located at Offutt AFB, Nebraska.

 

The re-designated unit's new emblem borrowed from its forbearer. It looks the same as AFWA's, but with one noticeable change. The verbiage at the bottom will now read, "Coelum Ad Prelium Elige," which is Latin for, "Choose the Weather for Battle."