About

A staff of tropical meteorologists in state-of-the-art weather centers on site at Kwajalein and also at distributed operations centers in Huntsville, Alabama and Norman, Oklahoma conduct weather watches, issue weather warnings, and provide customized weather analysis and forecast products to Range mission customers, aviation, marine, and other Garrison tenants, in addition to the general public.

Meteorological support assets include a S-band Dual-Polarized Doppler Weather radar; geostationary and polar orbiting meteorological satellite direct reception ground stations; satellite data processing, analysis and displays utilizing the Man-computer Interactive Data Access System (McIDAS); upper air and surface meteorological measurement systems, lightning detection equipment, and an atoll-wide system of automated surface observing stations.

RTS Weather also supports a variety of scientific research efforts. We help monitor global climate change by collecting data for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Monitoring Division and NASA’s Global Precipitation Mission.

About the Location

Kwajalein Atoll is part of the Ralik (meaning sunset or western) chain of the Northern Marshall Islands. Kwajalein Atoll is approximately 2,100 miles southwest of Hawaii, or about half-way between Hawaii and Australia. The on-site RTS Weather Station is located on Kwajalein Island, the largest of the approximately 100 islands that comprise Kwajalein Atoll. Located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and at just under nine degrees (or approximately 540 nautical miles) north of the equator, Kwajalein’s climate is tropical-marine. For more climate information, see the Kwajalein Climate Summary page.