Pat Host 
- Jay Humphlett and The Weather Company are offering the DROP
- DROP delivers environmental weather forecasting and insights in real time to the edge
- Humphlett, company GM, sat down with ExecutivBiz to talk pathways for weather data
Weather has always been foundational to Jay Humphlett’s career. Humphlett, The Weather Company general manager for commercial aviation and public sector, first served as a “backseater” operating weapon systems in Navy F-14s and F/A-18 fighters.
He then spent a number of years in the defense industry, including seven years as a Raytheon executive. Humphlett also helped Dataminr become the first company with an AI platform rolled out at the enterprise level for the Pentagon.
Humphlett joined The Weather Company in 2026. The organization has secured more than 100 users, according to the executive, for its DROP Platform, which delivers operational insights based on its weather and environmental data from the operations center to the tactical edge in an operational security-hardened picture.
In a Spotlight interview with ExecutiveBiz, Humphlett sat down to talk helping special operators make faster and more synchronized decisions, the acquisition pathway for weather data, how weather data feeds into broader Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control—a.k.a. CJADC2—efforts and how to approach data visualization for a wide range of end users.
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ExecutiveBiz: How does The Weather Company’s DROP empower special operators to make faster, more synchronized decisions when seconds count?
Jay Humphlett: DROP is a single platform with two primary use cases, or ways to access the data. One is a cloud-based tool generally used at the operations center. The other is a mobile version delivered as an Android Team Awareness Kit, a.k.a. ATAK, plugin, so it can be used on ATAK devices deployed to the tactical edge.
DROP empowers operators by reducing cognitive overload and eliminating data lag. Right now, whether they’re meteorologists or dismounted operators, people spend about 80 percent of their time working with environmental data, assimilating it and getting it into the right format. They spend only about 20 percent of their time forecasting or using that information to make mission-driven decisions.
We help flip that balance. We push high-fidelity, micro-tiled environmental overlays directly into the primary tactical picture. At the operations center, users can see the big picture and track conditions in real time while also looking at forecasts. At the tactical edge, they get a simpler visualization that still provides the situational awareness they need to understand what the environment is doing and how it impacts their mission.
It’s also about more than weather. We provide comprehensive environmental insights spanning atmospheric weather, maritime surface and subsurface conditions, and space weather—the full continuum of the environment.
EBiz: What does the acquisition pathway look like for a company like yours to sell weather data services to federal agencies? Does it involve direct contracts, government-wide acquisition contracts, partnerships with primes or other approaches?
Humphlett: It’s a combination of all of the above. Right now, we’re focused on direct contracts and are in discussions with our first prospective customer. I think our first couple of contracts will be direct.
We’re also working with partners that have contract vehicles our customers may prefer to use. We’re happy to pursue those options as well. In addition, we’ve started more formal partner discussions around using companies as channel partners and pursuing opportunities together.
Those are probably our primary pathways. We’re focused on commercial contracting vehicles, including other transaction agreements, and would prefer not to return to the traditional world of Federal Acquisition Regulation-based contracting. We’re not pursuing GSA Schedules at this time.
We want to move quickly while protecting our intellectual property, including our pricing. That’s why we’re primarily pursuing those three approaches: direct contracts, working through partners’ contract vehicles, and partnering on opportunities as a channel.
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EBiz: How do you see weather data feeding into broader JADC2 efforts to give commanders a more complete operational picture?
Humphlett: It’s fascinating. Weather has always been part of the mission narrative, but it hasn’t always been as reliable as it needs to be. I think that, for the first time, we can bring our best and most trusted weather data, along with comprehensive environmental insights, to support that broader picture.
CJADC2 is fundamentally about connecting sensors to shooters across all domains—air, land, sea, space and cyber—to shorten the decision cycle. We often hear about the [observe, orient, decide and act], or OODA, loop, and we can help shorten that loop.
Weather is a universal connective layer across every one of those domains. It affects sensor performance, radio performance and frequency propagation. It also influences weapons employment for aircraft and ships, as well as endurance and routing.
That means we can influence both mission planning and mission execution. We don’t view DROP as a standalone weather app; that would be too limiting. We see it as an essential, high-velocity data layer—or potentially multiple data layers—that feeds directly into the JADC2 data fabric.
We’re working to expose open, standardized application programming interface endpoints and low-latency data feeds, delivering information as close to real time as possible. That includes our best-in-class forecast model, GRAF, as well as other forecast models. Many military users are now looking at multi-model forecasting, and we believe DROP is uniquely positioned to enable that. We want to integrate seamlessly into the data fabric so we can play the role we believe we can.
Historically, weather data has been a relatively static layer that a commander could toggle on or off: “Show me the weather picture. Got it. Turn it off.” Because DROP delivers real-time information with richer visualization and predictive capabilities, we can support more proactive decision-making.
For example, CJADC2 algorithms could ingest DROP data to help optimize operations by automatically recalculating route availability, assessing dynamic sensor degradation and evaluating weapon effectiveness in real time. This would give commanders a comprehensive, environmentally aware common operating picture before they employ kinetic or non-kinetic effects.
EBiz: How do you approach data visualization and user experience design when your end users range from field-deployed warfighters to agency analysts working at a desk?
Humphlett: There are two primary ways to access DROP data. Let me start with our design philosophy, which centers on role-based operational parity. We want to deliver the same underlying scientific truth while tailoring the visual detail and user interaction to each user’s operational environment and device constraints.
We consider whether someone is sitting at a tactical operations center, or TOC, or a joint operations center, a.k.a. JOC, versus being deployed at the tactical edge and operating from a helicopter, a boat, or on foot.
For users working at a desk—primarily meteorological and oceanographic, or METOC, officers, but potentially intelligence professionals as well—the interface, DROP, is high-density and multilayered.
Today, these users may have more than 50 browser tabs open alongside various software tools. That creates the kind of cognitive overload I mentioned earlier. Analysts need deep analytical capabilities, so we make it easy to conduct multi-model comparisons and probabilistic ensemble forecasting. They can select different attributes from different models and combine them into a single blended model.
We also provide point validation around the world, allowing users to select the applicable parts of a model. Other capabilities include global radar simulation, route-planning toolkits, and three-dimensional weather visualization. Users can examine convective buildup and precipitation, then rotate the view horizontally to explore conditions at a particular point in space and time.
These users generally have high-bandwidth connections and large, multi-monitor displays, so DROP is optimized for that environment. We prioritize depth, precision and comprehensive data visualization, allowing users to toggle individual data layers or multiple layers as needed.
The other component is DROP TAK, our ATAK plugin. It’s a mobile support tool for people operating at the tactical edge. Here, we prioritize at-a-glance information and minimal interaction. When warfighters put their ATAK devices away, they don’t have much time to spare because they have other mission demands. We want to deliver the information they need quickly, without requiring them to interact with the platform very much.
Simplicity is the goal. We accomplish that in several ways, including through predefined triggers. The platform alerts users only when something relevant happens. If none of their triggers are activated, they aren’t interrupted and can stay focused on their primary mission.
The user experience translates complex environmental information into immediate tactical threat indicators. Visually, we use dynamic, color-changing range rings when users select a single point in space. They can also define triggers along a route, with color coding to show when forecast or real time conditions are approaching a threshold.
This supports go/no-go decisions before an operation begins. During a mission, it can also help users identify an alternate route or divert in real time based on those triggers.
All of this is anchored in our proprietary GRAF model, which provides our core forecasting capability, as well as ensemble modeling. We want meteorologists to be able to select the model components they need and create an ensemble forecast, then push that capability out to the tactical edge rather than keeping it confined to the TOC or JOC.
