Weather data pilot includes Hurricane Michael

The prototyping project is the first stage in an effort to bring more startups, small businesses and other non-traditional defense contractors into the field. The $8.1 million, one-year prototyping initiative asks an independent data processing company to study the utility of commercial data for the Air Force’s Global Air-Land Weather Exploitation Model. U.S. Air Force and Army combatant commanders use GALWEM to inform daily operations, combat missions and exercises. Data in the report will include information gathered when the Category 4 hurricane made landfall.

Weather scientists generate certain types of weather data by comparing how radio waves from the Global Navigation Satellite System react to the atmosphere, weather and climate. An Air Force Other Transaction Agreement will ask a third-party analyst to study the utility of data generated by GPS signal shifts in the atmosphere, called a radio occulation measurement. (U.S. Air Force graphic)