For Air Force weather experts, the cloud is the future – rain or shine

After spending the better part of a decade transitioning outdated systems and infrastructure to the cloud, the Air Force agency responsible for providing key weather and environmental inputs for military and intelligence operations is starting to see a silver lining.

Air Force Weather started its digital transformation in 2017 amid a broader U.S. government push to migrate away from siloed data centers to more secure, efficient and capable could-based environments. As the Air Force’s largest special-purpose data processing node — crunching around 80 terabytes of data, or the equivalent of 6.6 billion pages of text, a day — the organization was a “big fat target” for cyber threats, according to Fred Fahlbusch, Air Force Weather’s data domain officer and chief of the weather resources, programs, data and cybersecurity division.

So, with fresh funding in hand, it began the process of migrating its operations from physical servers at the 557th Weather Wing at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska to its new digital home in the cloud. It contracted with Amazon for cloud services and shifted its high-performance computing capability from Offutt to Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which could better accommodate its power and cooling needs.

The transition has been difficult on multiple levels, but Fahlbusch and other officials told Defense News the organization is on the verge of completing its change to the cloud by next year — a milestone they say is likely to spike demand for the operational weather products the organization provides to its user base.

“If we deliver what people want, then the demand signals are going to explode,” Fahlbusch said.

That new demand, while a sign of success, presents a whole new set of challenges for Air Force Weather. More utilization requires more resources, Fahlbusch said, and the organization will likely have to take a new approach to funding the services it provides.

Virtual Private Cloud

According to Rod Grady, chief architect and cloud integrator at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Weather Systems Branch, it’s not data that makes Air Force Weather indispensable. In fact, while the organization draws data from Air Force and Space Force radars and satellites, much of the weather information it relies on comes from unclassified sources like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, and commercial firms.

U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Samuel Davis, from the 2nd Weather Squadron, inspects the telescope of the observatory at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico -- one of three in use by the Air Force that tracks unusual solar activities that would disrupt missions around the world. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Isaiah Pedrazzini)

The organization’s value proposition, instead, is in what it does with that data.

“You can go out and buy weather data from many different sources,” Grady said. “But what makes us unique is the application of that data to support mission decision-making. And we have services and capability on enclaves that are being exploited every day by the millions.”

The organization, which is the go-to source for environmental data tools for the Air Force, Space Force, Army and intelligence community, sees around 30 million requests a month for weather products from users operating in classified enclaves.

One such tool gives military aircraft access to severe weather data when operating in areas without radar coverage. A hydro-intelligence product developed by Air Force Weather provides detailed flood mapping and forecasting. And a web-based application uses a network of terminals to pull data from U.S. and international weather satellites and make it available to users.

Moving operations to the cloud will help the organization develop more tools at a faster rate and increase its processing abilities, Grady said. It also will make its products available to more users.

The office is already seeing the initial impact of cloud operations on its products, as its transition to what it calls the Virtual Private Cloud, or VPC, has been incremental. One illustration of this, Grady said, is a capability called the Operational Data Layer, which allows a forecaster to create mission-specific tools out of large data sets.

The office started experimenting with the capability in 2010, but the technology proved too challenging and the project lost momentum. In 2020, amid the transition to VPC, Air Force Weather revived the effort with a new plan to use cloud computing processes to develop the data tool. This time, it went from initial concept to operations in less than six months and the organization is now expanding the capability for more applications.

“That product is now the number one hit product and is integrated into a number of applications across the Air Force and the DOD on the unclassified level and higher enclaves,” Grady said.

Fahlbusch said Air Force Weather’s products and delivery timelines will only improve once it’s fully leveraging VPC. And a better product combined with a cloud-based environment that allows users outside its typical base to access its tools will likely mean a significant increase in utilization.

“Once we’re in a cloud environment and available to people we’re not currently available to, there could be an explosion of demand from end users we’re not even aware of,” Fahlbusch said.

Managing demand

The office welcomes the larger user base but is also preparing for the challenges that will come with managing more demand. Fahlbusch said funding is his biggest concern.

The organization, whose fiscal 2025 funding sits around $250 million — not including personnel costs – could request more money to operate in the cloud, but that’s a difficult ask when the defense budget is tightening, Fahlbusch said.

It could also shift to a fee-for-service model, which puts the cost burden on the offices using its services. While the products the organization provides differentiate it from other sources, the cost could prove to be a barrier for users who are also seeing their budgets shrink, he said.

Fahlbusch is not alone in his concerns. Managing the cost and distribution of cloud services has been a challenge for Pentagon agencies that have embraced cloud operations over the last decade without aligning their processes under an enterprise-level management approach. In an effort to address these issues, the Defense Department released a Cloud Financial Operations Strategy last year designed to help both providers and users better navigate the cloud.

Air Force Weather is applying that strategy as it prepares for demand, according to Grady and Fahlbusch — monitoring usage more tightly and putting mechanisms in place to make sure it’s not sending duplicative information or larger amounts of data than necessary.

In practice, that means working more closely with users to get a better understanding of how much data they actually need for a particular task, which is often less than they originally requested, Fahlbusch said.

“We can work with them, and we can tailor it,” he said. “I think that will help defray some of the costs smartly and help curate what the end user really needs — targeted curation, if you will, versus asking for everything. That’ll kill us.”

Workforce, funding cuts

Air Force Weather’s concerns about managing the supply and demand that come with providing a more effective and capable product are set against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s deep cuts to the federal civilian workforce. The Department of Government Efficiency has also targeted contracting expertise and agencies like NOAA — both of which the organization relies on to provide high-quality weather products.

The office has seen some indirect impacts of those reductions, with civilian workforce cuts hitting the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, which provides acquisition and program management support. Fahlbusch said cuts to contractors and federally funded research and development centers — which provide crucial expertise to support Air Force Weather’s cloud transition — could also impact the agency.

“We need these specialists not as consultants but working the front lines as ‘digital grease monkeys,’ doing the coding, data curation, integration and other digital functions to help optimize weather integration into weapon systems,” a spokesman added in a June 4 statement following the interview.

Deep staffing and budget reductions at NOAA could also impact Air Force Weather, Fahlbusch said, giving it fewer reliable data sources from which to draw.

It’s not yet clear what the scope of that impact might be. Fahlbusch noted that while funding and personnel reductions could make it harder for Air Force Weather to continue to support military readiness and planning, the team understands the push for fiscal responsibility and will do what it can to realign manpower and funding if required.

“If there are things we have to stop doing to focus on those warfighting priorities, we will do it . . . consistent with the president and [secretary of defense] guidance,” he said. “Because that’s what we’re all about.”

For Air Force weather experts, the cloud is the future – rain or shine

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