With former National Hurricane Center Ken Graham moving on to become the new Director of the National Hurricane Center (NHC), NOAA has announced that Jamie Rhome will serve as the Acting Director for the National Hurricane Center until the permanent Director is named. Rhome was previously the Deputy Director for the NHC.
Rhome has served in a variety of roles at the Hurricane Center since 1999, from forecaster to hurricane and storm surge specialist. Michael Brennan, Ph.D., branch chief of the hurricane specialist unit, will serve as the Acting Deputy Director of the Center for the current hurricane season.
Prior to today, Ken Graham served as National Hurricane Center Director since April 1, 2018. Graham filled a void created when the previous director, Dr. Rick Knabb, departed the National Hurricane Center in May 2017 to return to the cable network, The Weather Channel. In Knabb’s absence, Ed Rappaport, who served as the Deputy Director of the NHC for 17 years, served as Acting Director.
Rhome received both his Bachelor of Science degree and Master of Science degree in meteorology from North Carolina State University (1999, 2002). He joined the National Hurricane Center in 1999 as a marine forecaster in the Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch. He became a hurricane specialist in 2006 and was selected to lead NHC’s Storm Surge program in 2008. He was also selected for a temporary assignment to the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy in 2008/2009 where he served as a scientific policy analyst within the Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.
The National Hurricane Center is the division within NOAA’s National Weather Service responsible for tracking and predicting tropical weather systems between the Prime Meridian and the 140th Meridian West poleward to the 30th parallel north in the northeast Pacific Ocean and the 31st parallel north in the North Atlantic Ocean. The NHC contains both the Hurricane Specialist Unit and the Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch. The office is co-located with the Miami branch of the National Weather Service on the campus of Florida International University in University Park, Florida.
