by Lynette Alice

Created on: October 19, 2009   Last Updated: October 23, 2009

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) has a rich history reaching back to the WWII era. While few people outside of JTWC's forecasting AOR (Area of Responsibility) or members of the military are aware of JTWC, it has played a vital role to both civilian and military personnel safeguarding countless lives and billions of dollars of assets. This article will provide an overview of the history of JTWC, its function, and an explanation of the various jobs performed there which allow for typhoon forecasts to be accurately disseminated on time.

During WWII the U.S. Third Fleet under Admiral Halsey had more than the Japanese to worry about, nature itself was just as dangerous an adversary. Historical data shows that on December 17, 1944, alone three destroyers, 146 aircraft, and 778 men all were lost to the forces of nature in the North Pacific. It was such a problem that by the time the U.S. was making plans to conduct atomic bombing runs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that USAAF Lt. Col. Nick Chavasse of the 655th B-24 Bombardment Squadron was dispatched to Guam to conduct weather reconnaissance. The previous weather center which was on Saipan was moved to Guam on New Years eve 1944.

Before JTWC existed officially as it is known today it was called FWC/TTC (Fleet Warning Center/Typhoon Tracking Center), and opened for business in May of 1945. The problem with this was that the unit had no aircraft to conduct reconnaissance and the technology available at that time was not good enough to stand alone as a means of accurately tracking typhoons with a high level of accuracy or timeliness. What prompted a swift change to this was Typhoon Viper which peaked around the 4-5 of June in 1945. Viper alone damaged 48 ships and 76 aircraft that the U.S. absolutely could not afford to lose. Warnings were issued but they lacked the timeliness needed to be of significant value through no fault of the forecasters tasked with a near impossible job.

That expensive loss prompted the reassignment of the 655th Bombardment Squadron to the 55th Reconnaissance Squadron on June 16, 1945. The first test run of FWC/TTC came in August when their product (Forecasts and advisories) allowed Admiral Halsey to weave between and around three typhoons en-route to Japan to accept their formal surrender. Having proved the value of such a unit to Halsey and the other brass involved the 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron (WRS) was officially formed on September 4, 1945, at Anderson AFB, Guam. Yokota, Japan,

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