On February 9, 1870, PresidentUlysses Grant signed into law a Joint Congressional Resolution that required the Secretary of War to establish a weather forecasting service for the United States. Tasked with taking and disseminating weather observations from selected sites, this agency was assigned to the Signal Service of the United States Army due to the fact that military discipline was needed and the new service needed to have a reliable communications system. Weather observations were initially to be made at 24 sites, with observations to be taken three times daily at 7:35a.m., 4:35 and 11:35p.m. local time. The official observations were then transmitted back to Washington D.C., with other observations to be taken as required.[2]
Operations of the Buffalo forecast office under the Signal Service began in the Hollister block of downtown Buffalo in November 1870. The station remained in the downtown area until 1944, when it moved its operations to the Buffalo Niagara International Airport. An observatory building was completed on the eastern side of the airport in the early 1960's, and a separate forecast wing at the airport terminal opened later in the same decade. In 1981, the observatory portion was converted into a contract meteorological observatory. The observation function was moved to the airport's terminal in the late 1990's, after the observatory's operation was transferred to the FAA. The forecast office moved into its present facilities near the eastern edge of the airport on Aero Drive in April 1995.[3]
The National Weather Service Buffalo, New York forecast office maintains programming for seven NOAA Weather Radio stations in New York to transmit routine extended and specialized short-term forecasts, current weather observations, hazardous weather outlooks and historical weather information. Each of the transmitters, through the Emergency Alert System, also disseminate watches, warnings and advisories issued by the NWS office, severe thunderstorm and tornado watches issued by the Storm Prediction Center, lake-effect and winter weather warnings, and other emergency information to the public.[4]
The office schedules a required weekly test of the Specific Area Message Encoding system for public alert dissemination on all seven NOAA Weather Radio transmitters in the region each Wednesday at about 11:00a.m. Eastern Time. If there is a threat of severe weather in the listening area of any or all of the stations, the test would be postponed to the next available good weather day, barring that severe weather is not forecasted to occur then.[5]
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