NWS’ primary mission is to help protect life and property by providing weather and flood warnings, public forecasts, and advisories for all of the United States, its territories, adjacent waters, and ocean areas. NWS operations also support other agencies’ missions and the nation’s commercial interests. For example, NWS provides specialized forecasts to support aviation safety and the marine industry. To fulfill its mission, NWS uses a variety of systems and manual processes to collect, process, and disseminate weather data to and among its network of field offices and regional and national centers. Many of these systems and processes are outdated. To address this obsolescence, during the 1980s NWS began modernizing its observing, information processing, and communications systems to improve the accuracy, timeliness, and efficiency of weather forecasts and warnings. The modernization includes four major systems development programs. The Next Generation Weather Radar, which is a program to acquire 163 Doppler radars that are expected to increase the accuracy and timeliness of warnings for severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, and other hazardous weather events. The Next Generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, a program to acquire, launch, and control five satellites for identifying and tracking severe weather events, such as hurricanes. The Automated Surface Observing System, a program to replace human weather observers through automating and enhancing the current, largely manual methods of collecting, processing, and displaying information on surface weather conditions, such as temperature and precipitation. The Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, intended to integrate for the first time satellite, radar, and other data to support weather forecaster decision-making and communications. The modernization also includes upgrades to existing systems and several smaller system acquisitions. The total cost of the modernization is estimated at about $4.5 billion. We have identified several weaknesses in NWS’ actions to modernize its operations and manage its information technology resources and made numerous recommendations on how NWS can strengthen its management of these resources. In 1995 we designated the NWS modernization as a high-risk area due to its cost, complexity, past problems, and criticality to NWS’ mission. We again included the modernization in our 1997 high-risk report because of continuing concerns regarding cost increases and schedule delays associated with the modernization. In conjunction with the modernization program, NWS plans to restructure its field offices. As envisioned, this restructuring would reduce the number of field offices from 254 to 118 and reduce the number of mainland regional headquarters offices from 4 to 3. However, delays in implementing two major modernization systems—the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System and the Automated Surface Observing System—have slowed progress in office restructuring. NWS now expects the modernization to be completed in fiscal year 1999. As part of its restructuring, NWS had expected to close the southern regional office after modernization was complete. The deployment of the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System was expected to help facilitate this closure because the system would provide a means for quick and easy communication among weather forecast offices, thus handling the coordination function currently performed by the regional offices. Other southern regional functions were to be transferred to the eastern and central regional headquarters offices. The NWS regional headquarters offices manage agency programs for weather and flood warnings and forecast operations, including (1) emergency preparedness; (2) modernization transition activities and certification processes; (3) scientific, technical, and administrative support to field offices; and (4) coordination of multistate programs and projects. The regional offices provide management and technical support to field offices, which are responsible for providing weather forecasts. As shown in figure 1, NWS has six regional headquarters offices—southern, western, central, eastern, Alaska, and Pacific—with a total of 292 full-time equivalents (FTE) as of September 30, 1996. To assess the degree of NWS analysis in support of the planned closure of the southern regional headquarters office, we reviewed NWS documents, including a transition report on the closure, cost comparisons of maintaining a four mainland regional structure versus a three mainland regional structure, alternative plans for keeping the four mainland regional structures intact, and the estimated cost savings associated with the closure of the southern region. In addition, we interviewed NOAA and NWS officials about their closure plan; the costs, benefits, and risks associated with the closure; and alternative plans to keep the four mainland regions—southern, western, central, and eastern—intact. We also interviewed southern region officials and weather service users in the region, including representatives of the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Division of Emergency Management, the National Emergency Management Council of America, the Texas Gulf Coast Emergency Management Association, and the Florida Division of Emergency Management. We performed our work at NOAA headquarters in Washington, D.C., and at NWS headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, from May 1997 through July 9, 1997. Our work was performed in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. We requested comments on a draft of this report from the Secretary of Commerce or his designee. NOAA provided comments, which are discussed in the “Agency Comments and Our Evaluation” section and are reprinted in appendix I. The comments have been incorporated into the report where appropriate. According to the former director of NWS and its deputy for operations, the southern regional headquarters office had been earmarked for closure since 1982. At that time, NWS was considering a three mainland regional structure in an effort to streamline regional operations. The former director told us that since both the central and southern regional headquarters are located in the central part of the United States, closing one of the headquarters appeared to be the most economical solution. According to the former director, an internal NWS analysis showed it to be more cost-effective to close the southern region and keep the central region open. He explained that several other NOAA and NWS facilities were collocated within the area of the central regional office—a weather service office, a NOAA administrative support center, and the National Reconditioning Center. In contrast, he said there were no other NWS activities collocated in the southern regional area. He also mentioned that southern region functions, such as hurricane and severe weather support, could be provided by both the eastern and central regional headquarters, whereas the reverse was not the case. The southern region, for example, could provide only limited support on winter weather warnings. The former director was unable to provide us with a copy of the analysis providing these reasons for closing the southern rather than the central regional office, explaining that NWS may not have documented its analysis. Despite attempts in the President’s annual budget proposals between fiscal years 1982 and 1993 to close the southern region, the Congress continued to restore funding to keep it open. In 1993, the Senate, concerned that the closing would have an adverse effect on the pace of modernization, directed in its report accompanying the appropriations act that “any decision on consolidation of NWS regional headquarters be made by the Administrator of NOAA only after a careful review of the savings involved and of the impact on the NWS activities in the southern region.” In response, the Department of Commerce’s former chief financial officer, in a January 28, 1994, letter, told the Chairman, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary, Senate Committee on Appropriations, that NOAA had determined that consolidating NWS regions at this time would be disruptive. She said that, as the largest region, the southern region was responsible for managing the modernization over a 10-state area, along with its day-to-day national public safety mission. She said that NOAA would, therefore, delay the consolidation until the modernization in 1998. However, due to delays in the implementation of the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, the modernization is now scheduled to be completed in 1999 at the earliest. NWS planned to move from a four mainland regional structure to one with three mainland regional offices after modernization. As part of an effort to downsize the federal government, NWS had to operate within a tighter budget in fiscal year 1997 and anticipates reduced budget levels planned for the outyears. According to NWS’ deputy for operations, the estimated budget shortfall totalled about $47 million. As shown in table 1, the appropriation for base operations was about $27 million less than in 1996. In addition, she said, NWS had to absorb another $20 million for pay-related inflation, personnel separations, and NOAA-wide and departmental costs. These figures were confirmed by the Administrator of NOAA. We did not independently verify this information. To address this shortfall, NWS initiated a number of measures, both temporary and permanent. Temporary actions included freezing operational equipment replacements, reducing central logistics quantities, deferring central communications network operations and maintenance, and reducing operational supplies and stock levels. According to the former director and the deputy for operations, these measures—which total about $10.8 million—must be restored in fiscal year 1998 if NWS is to carry out its mission. Further, NWS officials did not fill 118 vacant positions in fiscal year 1997. In commenting on a draft of this report, the Department stated that these positions were not filled in order to mitigate the effect of reductions-in-force in the southern regional headquarters and the national capital area. The Department added that by holding these vacancies, NWS was able to provide the maximum level of placement opportunities for employees directly affected by the reduction-in-force. NWS officials consider these positions critical, however, and plan to fill them in fiscal years 1997 and/or 1998. Permanent measures included reducing staff in the national capital area, streamlining central computer operations, reducing field outreach activities, and curtailing most nonoperational travel. Another permanent measure was to accelerate the closure of the southern region.