Uccellini, Louis

Louis grew up in Bethpage and a graduate from the Bethpage School system. He earned his bachelors and master's degrees in meteorology from the University of Wisconsin.

He has been the National Weather Service's Director of Meteorology since 1994. He oversees 372 federal employees and 300 contractors based in nine weather centers across the nation. This includes the Storm Prediction Center in Norman Okla., and the Tropical Prediction Center and National Hurricane Center both in Miami. Louis began his federal career in 1978 as a research meteorologist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Laboratory for Atmospheres in Greenbelt. He stayed there until 1989, when he joined the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as chief of its Meteorological Operations Division in Camp Springs.

He wrote a book with colleague Paul Kocin on Northeast snowstorms, "Snowstorms Along the Northeastern Coast of the United States, 1955-85". In 1993, he was recognized with a Department of Commerce Gold Medal for forecasting the "Storm of the Century" which hit in mid-March of that year. That storm dumped unprecedented amounts of snow from Alabama to Maine, killing 270 people. Louis claims it was the first time in the history of the weather service that a snowstorm was predicted five days in advance.

Information from THE HOWARD COUNTY TIMES March 11, 1999.

From growing up in Bethpage to a White House briefing Dr.Uccellini, Director of National Centers for Environmental Prediction, addressed the up and coming hurricane season.

From his early days, as a boy growing up in Bethpage, of tracking local weather by following the weather maps in the NEW YORK TIMES and staying up late to watch Tex Antoine give the weather on TV, and reading books all with an interest to try to understand and learn about weather and the storms we endure.

Dr. Uccellini has received awards for the many positions he held over the years, the responsibilities he assumed, his research, and operational achievement. Many of his journals and chapters in books have been published, and he is the author of books on severe weather. He co-authored the book, SNOWSTORMS ALONG THE NORTHEASTERN COAST OF THE UNITED STATES: 1955 - 1985 and he wrote a two volume book NORTHEAST SNOWSTORMS. His predictions of extreme storms, before they were even formed, and tracking of them has been remarkable.

His doctorate in meteorology is from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Information filed with CENTRAL PARK HISTORICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER - September 9, 2007. Ahead of the Storm

Below information from Bethpage Hall of Fame - Sponsored by the Bethpage Educational Foundation - Induction Ceremony - October 18, 2014

Louis W. Uccellini, Ph.D., was raised on a small farm in Bethpage and graduated from Bethpage High School in 1967. He went on to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for his bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees in meteorology. In February 2013, he was selected as the Director of the National Weather Service. In that role he is responsible for the day-to-day civilian weather operations for the United States, its territories, adjacent waters, and ocean areas. Previously he held positions including the Director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, the Director of the National Weather Service's Office of Meteorology and senior research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Louis is a prolific author of more than 60 scientific articles on severe convective storms, snowstorms, and use of satellite data in numerical forecast models. He also co-authored the widely acclaimed two-volume American Meteorological Society (AMS)monograph entitled NORTHEAST SNOWSTORMS. Throughout his career, Louis has made major contributions to advancing our understanding of weather systems and has contributed to the foundational transformation of the forecast process that is now based on numerical forecast models and accurately predicts extreme weather events out to a week in advance.

As the 16th Director in the 135-year history of the National Weather Service, Louis has led the agency through a series of upgrades to its powerful supercomputers, which run increasingly sophisticated numerical models to forecast extreme weather, water and climate events. This huge leap in technology will permit even more accurate forecasts and warnings, which are now used by the emergency management community to make life-saving decisions - as the Nassau County Emergency Operations Center did for Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

In 2001, Louis received the U.S. Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award and in 2006 he received the U.S. Presidential Distinguished Rank Award. In January 2012, he was elected the President of the American Meteorological Society and served from 2012 to 2013.

Louis currently lives in Maryland with his wife Susan. They have three children, Anthony, Francesca and Dominic - and five grandchildren.

NEWSDAY - September 8, 2021 - reports "Weather service head retires". Louis announced, Tuesday, he is stepping down at the end of 43 years of weather researching and forecasting. He has grown with the storms, over his years, from his home town of Bethpage on to the National Weather Service, and now the concerns of the extreme weather conditions caused by climate change.