Kenneth Graham, a 24-year veteran of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has been appointed director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida effective April 1.
He succeeds Ed Rappaport, who has led the center on an interim basis since Rick Knabb stepped down in May last year, NOAA said Thursday.
Graham has served as the meteorologist-in-charge of the National Weather Service’s New Orleans/Baton Rouge forecast office since 2008 and previously worked as systems operations division chief at NWS Southern Region headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas.
He also held the position of meteorological service chief at NWS HQ in Silver Spring, Maryland, and meteorologist-in-charge at forecast offices in Alabama and Texas.
Before he joined NOAA, Graham was a broadcast meteorologist for the WCBI-TV station in Mississippi.