Station History
Austin
From the 1850s to 1926 weather records for Austin were
collected at various locations throughout the City of Austin,
as Cooperative Weather Stations,
including the Engineering
Building on the University of Texas campus. The University of
Texas site collected data from 1883 to 1926. The first Weather Bureau Office
was established in Austin in October 1926.
The office was then moved to
Austin Robert Mueller Airport in August of 1942.
The office remained at the airport for 53 years, changing
names to the National Weather Service Office in 1970. The office
underwent drastic technological changes following the name change,
first with the installation of a WSR-74C Local Area Warning
Radar in the late 1970's, computers in the early 1980's, eliminating
the teletype as the primary dissemation system.
Further technological changes occurred through the
Mid 1990's.
Del Rio
From 1905 to 1951 weather records in the Del Rio Area were
collected at various locations throughout the city
as Cooperative Weather Stations.
The Weather Bureau Office was established
in 1951.
The office changed names
in 1970 to the National Weather Service Office.
Technology changes occurred in the 1980s to
the Mid 1990's.
Hondo
The Weather Service Meteorological Observatory in Hondo opened in the
summer of 1971, as the site for the last of the National Weather
Service's network WSR-57 radars. The WSR-57 radar's function
brought radar coverage to the Texas Hill Country and South Central
Texas. The radar, representing the 1940s and 1950s technology,
underwent several modernization changes through the years to
enhance its severe storm detecting and tracking capabilities.
Advances in radar technology in the 1980s was the development
of a new Doppler radar, called the WSR-88D. The WSR-88D
Weather Radar made the WSR-57 Hondo radar obsolete.
San Antonio
The National Weather Service Office in San Antonio began
in the 1870s and 1880s at Fort Sam Houston as part of the
U.S. Army's Signal Corps. In July 1891 Congress established
the Weather Bureau terminating the U.S. Army's Signal Corps
weather observing role. The first Weather Bureau Office
was established in the downtown San Antonio business district.
The Weather Bureau Office stayed in the
downtown business district of San Antonio until January 1941,
when it was moved temporarily to Stinson Field, and then
later to the San Antonio International Airport.
In 1970 the
office became the National Weather Service Forecast Office.
In the summer of 1971, the weather radar was transferred from
San Antonio to Hondo.
In 1972 the office was moved off the airport to a nearby office at
the North Crown Building, 1.1
miles southeast of the
airport.
Technological change from teletype to computers followed from
the late 1970s to the early 1980s, and continued from
the late 1980's to the 1990's.
As part of the National Weather
Service's Modernization and Restructuring Plan,
the San Antonio office was transferred to
New Braunfels and consolidated with three
other offices, Austin, Del Rio and Hondo
in 1994 and 1995. The office was
renamed as the Austin/San Antonio National
Weather Service Office.
weather.gov
