The 557th Weather Wing is a United States Air Force formation and its lead military meteorology center.

It reports environmental situational awareness worldwide to the Air Force, the United States Army, joint warfighters, Unified Combatant Commands, the national intelligence community, and the Secretary of Defense.

It has over 1,800 active-duty, reserve, civilian and contract personnel and is headquartered on Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, with a $175 million annual budget.

[3][4][5] The 557th Weather Wing is organized into a headquarters element consisting of staff agencies, two groups, three directorates, and five solar observatories.

The 15th Operational Weather Squadron, at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, handles the Northern and Northeast United States; 25th Operational Weather Squadron, at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, handles the Western United States; and 26th Operational Weather Squadron, at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, handles the Southern United States.

The 2nd Weather Group, with headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base, delivers terrestrial, space and climatological global weather information to Joint combatants, Department of Defense (DoD) decision-makers, national agencies, and allied nations for the planning and execution of missions across the complete spectrum of military operations through the operation, sustainment and maintenance of Air Force Weather's US$277 million strategic center computer complex, production network, and applications.

Directs the planning, programming, budgeting, acquisition, and life cycle management for all standard weather systems and computer processing equipment.

They coordinate capabilities development conducted by three separate production centers and integrate them into a single Air Force Weather Weapon System.

The three-story building, designed to support 1,100 people, and was scheduled to become fully operational by 2011 as the staff moved in increments.

Each handled a region that was congruent with the area of responsibility of one of the three wings assigned to General Headquarters Air Force.

Although responsibility for the AAF Weather Service was returned to the Air Staff in July, the wing remained in North Carolina.

Air Force Weather Agency and its predecessors have been essentially instrumental in protecting life and property at home as well.

With its early adoption of emerging computing and communications technologies, Air Force Weather was at the fore of the Space Age.

Working with the other national agencies, Air Force Weather has been instrumental in the development of modern meteorological technologies, such as the deployment of NEXRAD, the Next Generation Radar, in the 1990s.

Air Force Weather continues to refine and develop forecasting models relevant for modern military operations.