The mission of a Special Operations Weather Technician was to deploy by the most feasible means available into combat and non-permissive environments to collect and interpret meteorological data and provide air and ground forces commanders with timely, accurate intelligence.

SOWTs provided vital intelligence and deployed with joint air and ground forces in support of direct action, counter-terrorism, foreign internal defense, humanitarian assistance, special reconnaissance, austere airfield, and combat search and rescue.

[1] An article in the 13 May 2019 Air Force Times announced changes to the career field and stated in part: Special operations weather team airmen, known as SOWTs, are getting a new name and mission.

[2]During World War II, Army Air Forces combat weathermen supported the American effort against the Japanese in the China-Burma-India theater of operations.

[5] Previously, during 1963 and 1964, Captain Keith R. Grimes organized the first ad-hoc Air Weather Service Unconventional Warfare Detachment at Hurlburt Field, FL.

These, few in-member numbers, special warfare weathermen began deploying to Laos with the primary mission of training friendly forces to take and report weather observation.

It was this group of weathermen who worked clandestinely in Laos, under dangerous conditions and on a nearly uninterrupted basis, to establish and maintain weather observing and reporting net essential to combat air operations.

The prevailing senior leadership attitude during this period was expressed by a question AWS chief of staff, Colonel Edwin E. Carmell hypothetically asked in December 1972 of "If you look at it objectively, what kinds of weather [data] do you get out of those guys?"

However immediately following the "hindsight" suggestion is disclosure of the OPSEC risks of such a WC-130 pathfinder reconnaissance, potentially causing mission compromise, was considered to override any advantages gained.

The latter include the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (SERE), Security Forces (SF), and Special Missions Aviation (SMA) career fields.

SOWT's could also have been attached to Marine MARSOC and Navy SEAL teams, to collect weather, ocean, river, snow and terrain intelligence, assist mission planning, generate accurate mission-tailored target and route forecasts in support of global special operations and train joint force members and coalition partners to take and communicate limited weather observations.

Additionally, Special Operations Weathermen conducted special reconnaissance, fly small Unmanned aerial systems (SUAS), collected upper air data, organized, established and maintained weather data reporting networks, determined host nation meteorological capabilities and trained foreign national forces.