Weather team provides reports for mission

  • Published
  • By Airmen First Class Jack Sanders
  • JBER PAO
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  Arctic Warriors are defined by the cold temperatures they operate in, but to deal with Alaska's harsh climate Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson relies on the Airmen of the weather flight to keep them informed.

The 3rd Operations Support Squadron, 3rd Wing, weather flight will be responsible for eight different airframes beginning, Feb. 12, said Air Force Staff Sgt. Raymond Polasky, 3rd OSS, weather flight.

The weather flight supports a mixture of Army, Air Force and reserve airframes, which include, but aren't limited to the F-22 Raptors, C-17 Globemaster III, C-12 Huron, E-3 Sentry, UC-35A, C-130 Hercules, HH-60 Pave Hawk, and C-23 Sherpa.

"We also forecast specifically for five different airfields - Elmendorf, Bryant, Juneau, Bethel and Nome," Polasky said.

"A weather flight member's job is to provide the most accurate forecasts for the base, its residents and the "decision makers," Polasky said.

"The more accurate the forecast, the better they can do their mission planning; the better they can do their mission," he said.

"If we give a snow warning tonight, that allows commanders and aircrew to think, 'OK, maybe we need to reschedule, or maybe we need to change our training mission for Wednesday.' It gives them advanced notice on how to do their duties better."


The weather flight has a direct effect on JBER, he said. Almost all operations on the installation rely on the accuracy of their forecasts.

"Our advisories go out to all the commanders and they're going to have to make the decisions whether to increase road conditions, or issue a delayed reporting," Polasky said. "Our decisions have to be as accurate as possible in order to make other peoples' lives and missions better.

"We have to know our job," he said. "Besides reading lots and lots of computer model data, we actually have to know physics of the atmosphere and all its part of our tech school."

The members of the weather flight must not only use their experience and knowledge, but forecaster tools and forecaster data in order to do the mission.

Some of the tools of the trade for weather Airmen include, weather sensors, which are located on both ends of the flightline, satellites and radar.

"We've got not only radar for here, we've got radar for Bethel, we can use other radars in Alaska as well," Polasky said. "It's not as many as in the states, but it's enough that we can accurately predict."

The weather flight is preparing for the upcoming addition of the Kulis 176th, Alaska Air National Guard airframe movement.

The weather flight is confident of their performances, even with the new additions.

"Sometimes we are wrong," Polasky said. "But, most of the time we're pretty accurate."