Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command The Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command ( COMNAVMETOCCOM ) or NMOC , serves as the operational arm of the Naval Oceanography Program . Headquartered at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi , NMOC is a third echelon command reporting to United States Fleet Forces Command ( USFLTFORCOM ) . CNMOC ' s claimancy is globally distributed , with assets located on larger ships ( aircraft carriers , amphibious ships , and command and control ships ) , shore facilities at fleet concentration areas , and larger production centers in the U . S . NMOC is focused on providing critical environmental knowledge to the warfighting disciplines of Anti - Submarine Warfare ; Naval Special Warfare ; Mine Warfare ; Intelligence , Surveillance and Reconnaissance ; and Fleet Operations ( Strike and Expeditionary ) , as well as to the support areas of Maritime Operations , Aviation Operations , Navigation , Precise Time , and Astrometry . The Oceanographer of the Navy works closely with the staff of NMOC to ensure the proper resources are available to meet its mission , to act as a liaison between NMOC and the Chief of Naval Operations , and to represent the Naval Oceanography Program in interagency and international forums . Mission . Responsible for command and management of the Naval Oceanography Program , utilizing meteorology and oceanography , GI & S , and precise time and astrometry , to leverage the environment to enable successful strategic , tactical and operational battle space utilization across the continuum of campaigning and at all levels of war – strategic , operational and tactical . History . The Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command traces its ancestry to the Depot of Charts and Instruments , a 19th century repository for nautical charts and navigational equipment . In the 1840s , its superintendent , Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury , created and published a revolutionary series of wind and current charts . This information , still resident in modern computer models of Ocean basin s and the atmosphere , laid the foundation for the sciences of oceanography and meteorology . Atmospheric science was further developed with the birth of naval aviation early in the twentieth century . During World War I and the following decades , naval aerological specialists applied the fledgling concepts of air masses and fronts to warfare and provided forecasts to the first transatlantic flight . The Navy ' s weather and ocean programs contributed greatly to Allied victory in World War II . In the Pacific , Navy forecasters cracked the Japanese weather code . Hydrographic survey ships , often under enemy fire , collected data along foreign coastlines for the creation of critical navigation charts . In the mid - 1970s , the Navy ' s meteorology and oceanography programs were integrated in a single organization reflecting nature ' s close interaction of sea and air . This structure is today the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command . Organization . Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command is a third echelon operational command reporting to Fleet Forces Command . The Command ' s personnel are located at its headquarters at the John C . Stennis Space Center near Bay St . Louis , Mississippi , and at several field activities located around the world . The Command ' s major subordinate activities include the Naval Oceanographic Office , located at Stennis Space Center Mississippi ; Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center , located in Monterey , California ; the Naval Observatory , located in Washington , D . C . ; the Naval Oceanography Operations Command , located at Stennis Space Center , Mississippi ; and the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Professional Development Center located in Gulfport , Mississippi . The Command is aligned to and focused on five of the Navy ' s warfighting disciplinesAnti - Submarine Warfare ; Special Warfare ; Mine Warfare ; Intelligence , Surveillance and Reconnaissance ; and Fleet Operations ( Strike and Expeditionary ) - - as well as the following warfighting support disciplines : Navigation , Precise Time and Astrometry , Maritime Operations and Aviation Operations .