For more than thirty years, AWCIA has advanced cooperation, mutual support, and proactive solutions among the public, private, and academic sectors that make up America's Weather Enterprise.
Foundational weather data: free, open, and equitably distributed — the principle that built the American Weather Enterprise.
Read Our Position →AWCIA represents the commercial weather and climate industry — the only private-sector producer of weather information, services, and systems in the United States. We convene members, shape policy, and engage Congress, NOAA, and the National Weather Service on behalf of the industry's common interests.
Engaging directly with Members of Congress, appropriators, and committee staff to advance policies that strengthen the American Weather Enterprise and protect industry's role within it.
Constructive engagement with federal agencies on foundational data dissemination, Impact-Based Decision Support Services, spectrum policy, and the boundaries between public and private sector roles.
A safe, neutral forum for member companies to align on consensus positions, share insights on emerging issues, and influence federal priorities that affect their businesses.
Empower the American weather enterprise to achieve its full potential.
Define the value chain across public and private institutions.
Focus NOAA/NWS on core infrastructure and life-safety warnings.
Align federal budgets with maximum use of the whole enterprise.
Execute aligned missions through public–private partnerships.
Decisions affecting your business are being made every day — in Congressional offices, in NOAA leadership meetings, and in the fine print of federal data licenses. AWCIA ensures your company has a voice in those rooms.
Shape consensus industry positions on the issues that determine the commercial weather sector's future — and bring them directly to federal decision-makers.
Stay informed on regulatory, legislative, and agency developments — including data redistribution rights, IDSS expansion, and spectrum policy — before they affect your operations.
Engage with peer companies in a neutral, confidential forum — ask questions, share concerns, and build the relationships that move the industry forward.
The American Weather and Climate Industry Association exists to advance the unique role of the private sector within the American Weather Enterprise. Our member companies are the only private-sector producers of weather and climate information, services, and systems — the firms that translate publicly-funded foundational data into the forecasts, warnings, and decision-support tools that protect lives, safeguard property, and power the U.S. economy.
For more than thirty years, AWCIA has promoted a path of cooperation and mutual support across all sectors of the Weather Enterprise — public, private, and academic. The relationship between the National Weather Service and industry, articulated in the foundational Fair Weather report and endorsed by the American Meteorological Society and the National Academies, has been a cornerstone of the Enterprise's twenty-year run of progress. AWCIA was built to protect and extend that progress.
Our members include weather data providers, forecast service companies, broadcast meteorology firms, sensor and observation network operators, aviation and energy weather specialists, and emerging climate analytics businesses. What unites them is a shared commitment to a healthy, vibrant private weather sector operating in productive partnership with NOAA, the NWS, and the academic research community.
AWCIA does not duplicate the work of broader scientific societies or compete with multi-sector enterprise organizations. Our mandate is narrower and more specific: collaborative advocacy for the private weather and climate industry. We convene member companies in confidential forums, develop consensus positions on the policy questions that matter most to our sector, and engage directly with Members of Congress, appropriators, NOAA leadership, the National Weather Service, and the Department of Commerce.
The Association's foundational Five Tenets, adopted in 2013, articulate our strategic framework. They place special focus on NOAA and the NWS as builders of the nation's core weather infrastructure and providers of life-safety warnings — and on industry as the partner best positioned to deliver value-added services efficiently and at scale. Every initiative AWCIA supports is measured against those five principles.
In the current environment — with foundational data dissemination practices in flux, with proposed expansions of federal services into industry-served markets, and with growing pressure on the budgets and missions that underpin the Enterprise — the case for a coordinated industry voice has never been stronger.
To promote the unique place of America's Weather and Climate Industry in the American Weather Enterprise as the only private-sector producer of information, services, and systems related to weather and climate.
AWCIA pursues this mission through constructive engagement with the United States federal government — policymakers on Capitol Hill, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Weather Service, and the Department of Commerce — to deliver the full value of publicly-funded foundational weather data and information to American citizens, businesses, and the economy.
The private sector has consistently demonstrated that it is more efficient and effective at many components of the creation and delivery of weather forecasts and warnings to the businesses, governments, and individuals who depend on them. The Association exists to ensure a healthy and vibrant private sector — one that advances the common mission of saving lives, protecting property, and enhancing the national economy.
The American Weather and Climate Industry Association supports initiatives whose strategic purpose fits within five primary tenets. These principles, adopted in 2013, guide every position we take and every initiative we support.
The American Weather Enterprise — the network of public agencies, private companies, and academic institutions that together produce and deliver the nation's weather and climate information — represents one of the most successful public-private collaborations in any sector of the U.S. economy. Our first commitment is to its continued strength.
Clarity about which sector is best positioned to perform which function is essential. AWCIA works to articulate the value chain so that taxpayer dollars are deployed where they have the greatest impact, and so that the public benefits from the most efficient combination of public infrastructure and private innovation.
NOAA and the National Weather Service hold an irreplaceable role: building and operating the nation's foundational weather infrastructure and issuing the life-safety warnings on which the American public depends. AWCIA's third tenet affirms that role — and the partnership with industry that has made the U.S. a global leader in weather and weather media.
Federal weather and climate funding should be structured to maximize the contribution of every part of the Enterprise. AWCIA engages directly with Congressional appropriators, authorizing committees, and Executive Branch decision-makers to advance budget and policy priorities that achieve that goal.
Mission alignment alone is not enough — execution matters. The fifth tenet commits AWCIA to active support for the public-private partnerships, formal and informal, through which the Enterprise actually delivers its mission. Saving lives, protecting property, and enhancing the national economy are jobs no single sector can accomplish alone.
For more than thirty years, AWCIA has worked to strengthen the partnership between the federal weather services and the commercial weather industry — a partnership that has made the American Weather Enterprise a global model. Our advocacy is built on a simple premise: when public infrastructure, private innovation, and academic research operate in concert, the public is best served. We engage with NOAA, the NWS, Congress, and the Department of Commerce to keep it that way.
NOAA/NWS's foundational ethos has long been to distribute essential weather data freely and equitably. The agency's growing reliance on commercial data purchases — paired with restrictions on the redistribution of data procured with public funds — directly undermines that principle.
AWCIA is urging NOAA and the NWS to publish a clear, transparent strategy for the licensing of commercial datasets, to make all publicly-funded foundational data available on free and equal terms to the broader weather community, and to resolve the licensing constraints that have, in recent cases, restricted access to critical operational tools.
AWCIA continues to engage with the NWS on the scope of Impact-Based Decision Support Services. While the agency has made meaningful adjustments in response to industry feedback, concerns remain that IDSS activities may extend into markets already well-served by industry — and may draw resources away from NWS's core mission of providing foundational data and life-safety warnings.
Clear demarcations between government-provided IDSS and industry-provided services protect both the public interest and the private sector's ability to invest, innovate, and serve customers.
Recent proposals to expand the licensing of federally-developed weather innovations for commercial purposes raise significant questions about the appropriate role of government in markets the private sector already serves. AWCIA supports innovation across the Enterprise — and believes the historically successful model has been one in which federal R&D is broadly disseminated rather than monetized in competition with industry.
The continued availability of protected radio-frequency spectrum for passive weather observations — and the prevention of harmful interference from adjacent uses — is critical to the accuracy of every forecast produced in the United States. AWCIA partners with NWA, AMS, and other Enterprise organizations to ensure that spectrum policy decisions account for the operational realities of weather observation.
AWCIA works with appropriators and authorizing committees to support funding levels that enable NOAA and the NWS to fulfill their core missions — including foundational observations, modeling, satellite operations, and research — and to ensure that budget priorities reflect the contributions of every part of the Enterprise.
The case for renewed cooperation, transparent data practices, and clearly defined sector roles — and the steps AWCIA believes the federal weather enterprise must take to protect twenty years of progress.
Available to member companies. Contact us for access.
A detailed examination of current federal practices affecting the commercial weather industry — including foundational data distribution, IDSS expansion, and federal commercialization initiatives — together with AWCIA's recommended path forward.
Request Access →AWCIA membership gives commercial weather and climate companies direct access to the federal decision-making processes that shape their businesses, and a confidential forum to align with industry peers on the issues that matter most.
A neutral organization providing collective representation of the membership through direct, regular engagement with Members of Congress, NOAA leadership, the National Weather Service, the Department of Commerce, and other federal bodies that shape the weather enterprise.
Ensure your company has a voice in conversations about commercially acquired data, redistribution rights, IDSS scope, and other issues that directly affect your operations — and don't find out about them after decisions have been made.
Help develop consensus industry positions that guide appropriators and NOAA in prioritizing funding for activities critical to the private sector — including foundational data dissemination and the infrastructure that enables industry innovation.
A safe environment to ask questions, share insights, and raise concerns about issues that may impact your business — alongside peer companies facing the same regulatory and policy realities.
Participate in topic-specific working groups on the issues that matter most to your company — from data licensing and IDSS to spectrum, satellite policy, and emerging climate services markets.
Help shape the formal recommendations AWCIA delivers to NOAA and the NWS to address issues affecting members' businesses — and ensure your company's perspective is reflected in industry's collective voice.
AWCIA membership spans the breadth of the commercial weather and climate sector — from established global firms to emerging analytics startups. What unites our members is a shared commitment to a healthy private sector operating in productive partnership with the public and academic communities.
Complete the inquiry form below. A member of the AWCIA Board will follow up to discuss your company's interests and the membership process.
For membership inquiries, press requests, policy questions, or coordination with other Weather Enterprise organizations — reach out to the Association directly.