Even as millions of people dig out from those record snowfall totals again, the National Weather Service celebrates a little history of its own. Its 145th birthday was Monday!
February 9, 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a resolution giving the Secretary of War the authority to create a national weather service. This is a photo of the building in Washington D.C., where the National Weather Service began, before moving to Silver Spring, Maryland with 122 forecasting offices across America.
The National Weather Service issues about 1.5 million forecasts and 50,000 warnings each year.