United States Weather Research Program Act of 2002 - States that the United States Weather Research Program's priorities shall be in the areas of: (1) hurricanes, to improve landfall location and hurricane strength forecasts; (2) heavy precipitation, to improve winter and rain storm forecasts; (3) floods, to improve flood forecasting and forecasting and warning systems for inland flooding related to tropical cyclones; (4) two-to-fourteen day forecasting, to improve weather predictions and warnings of high-impact weather events, to conduct the Hemispheric Observing System Research and Predictability Experiment (THORpex) to fill observational gaps in the Northern Hemisphere, and to test and evaluate advanced data assimilation techniques in global models; (5) societal and economic impacts, to identify methods of delivering weather information effectively, to recommend ways to improve weather communications, to assess impacts of adverse weather, to evaluate what weather information is most useful, and to perform research on such impacts; and (6) testing research concepts at Program-sponsored test bed centers, to enable technology transfer to operational meteorologists.
Directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to develop and annually update, and NOAA's Administrator to report to Congress on, a five-year plan: (1) describing how Federal agencies can best team with universities and other research institutions; (2) identifying social, economic, and military needs and requirements for weather information; (3) outlining methods for disseminating information to user communities; and (4) describing best practices for transferring Program research results to forecasting operations.