The 3rd Weather Squadron (3 WS) is a unit of the United States Air Force. It was formed at Barksdale Field (now Barksdale Air Force Base), Louisiana, on 24 June 1937, as part of the Signal Corps. The 3rd was one of three original squadrons that eventually transferred from the Signal Corps to the Air Corps. Currently located at West Fort Hood, the 3rd Weather Squadron is aligned under the 3rd Air Support Operations Group. Weather support to Fort Hood began in 1947 at the newly constructed Killeen AFB. Today, the 3rd Weather Squadron—in addition to providing weather support to the Fort Hood complex—has operating locations at Forts Bliss, Huachuca, Riley, and Sill in Texas, Arizona, Kansas, and Oklahoma, respectively.
The 3rd Weather Squadron is currently the largest base- or post-level weather unit in the Air Force. The support provided by the squadron is as diverse as its history and that of the Army customers it supports. The squadron maintains a 24-hour observing and forecasting section at Robert Gray Army Airfield with extended observing hours at Hood Army Airfield.
The squadron patch is Walt Disney's Cupid which was sold to the unit for one US dollar during World War II, in efforts to raise troop morale.
Read more about 3rd Weather Squadron: Combat Weather Teams, Operations in Iraq
Famous quotes containing the words weather and/or squadron:
“Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Well gentlemen, this is it. This is what we’ve been waiting for. Tonight your target is Tokyo. And you’re gonna play ‘em the Star Spangled Banner with two-ton bombs. All you’ve got to do is to remember what you’ve learned and follow your squadron leaders. They’ll get you in, and they’ll get you out. Any questions? All right that’s all. Good luck to you. Give ‘em hell.”
—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)