National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office Charleston, SC 5777 South Aviation Avenue North Charleston, SC 29406-6162 (843) 744-0303 Staff Listing Virtual Tour FAQs The Charleston National Weather Service Forecast Office has forecast and warning responsibility for portions of southern South Carolina and southeast Georgia as well as a portion of the Atlantic coastal waters from South Santee River in South Carolina to the Altamaha River in Georgia, including Charleston Harbor. Note that we only have warning responsibility for AMZ370 and therefore do not issue routine forecasts for those waters. Various public, marine, aviation, fire weather, hydrologic, and climate products, along with severe weather warnings, are issued daily. A complete list of products can be found here. The office is also involved in many other programs such as those listed below. Office Programs: Amateur Radio We monitor several local amateur radio repeater frequencies on the 2 meter and 440 MHz bands. We have two Kenwood-251 radios; one is used for packet radio so that during severe weather we will be able to send severe weather bulletins. Amateur radio operators will be able to send in a severe report over their personal computer. Directional and omni-directional antennas located on a 60ft. tower next to the office insure that we are in contact all with the amateur radio 2-meter repeaters from Charleston to Savannah. We activate a local spotter network during severe weather by calling the primary network control operator. Cooperative Observers The NWS Cooperative Observer Program has a long history. The observations, which mainly consist of temperature and precipitation, help forecasters especially since many are located in rural areas where most of the larger observational networks are not located. Click here to view a map of our cooperative observers. Outreach Contact us by phone at 843-554-4851 during normal business hours Monday through Friday if you would like an office tour. We normally conduct school tours for 5th grade and higher. We also can give weather presentations at your school, business, or civic club. SKYWARNTM Spotter Network Despite advancements in our observing systems, an accurate real-time severe weather report is invaluable to forecasters. If you would like to assist us and become a trained weather spotter, check out our SKYWARNTM spotter page! Upper-air We release a helium-filled weather balloon at 6 AM and 6 PM LST (Local Standard Time) each day. The balloon carries a small battery-powered radiosonde which collects weather data as it rises to around 20 miles above the earth's surface. When the balloon bursts it has expanded to the size of a room in a house. A parachute then carries the re-usable instrument back to the surface. Ground equipment at our office tracks a radio frequency sent by the radiosonde so that we may get a vertical cross section of pressure, humidity, and temperature measurements. The ground equipment also computes wind speed and direction at various heights. This is done by calculating the radiosonde's change in position with time relative to the ground station. A computer codes the upper air data and it is sent to a national supercomputer in Washington, D.C. for input to the NWS forecast models. With a worldwide network of three-dimensional upper air observations, weather forecasts can be produced for periods up to 7 days into the future.