On Tue, 31 May 2005 09:39:32 -0400, thunder
wrote:

On Tue, 31 May 2005 12:24:11 +0000, Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:


The NWS has several local offices at various places around the country and
are staffed with full time meteorologists who are familiar with local
conditions, patterns and information. AccuWeather and the Weather Channel
cannot hope, even with the information, to provide that kind of local
"nuance" with respect to weather.

I'm four square on the side of the NWS on this one - if AccuWeather or the
Weather Channel want the real time data, let them access it as a cost of
doing business - it will help offset the costs of the NWS to boot. :)

Sorry for the rant.

First, I don't consider it a rant, and I'm quite interested in your take
on this. I'm a little confused here. I've always thought that the
private weather services generally did use NWS data for their forecasts.
Correct?

Yes - that is correct. All the pretty graphics you see on TV and on
The Weather Channel are all based on NWS data stream (which was
recently updated - I use the data stream, for instance, to build my
own weather maps for my own amusement).

What does this bill propose to change? Is it just for eliminating the lag
time?

What the Weather Channel and AccuWeather say this is about is that
they are in competition with the NWS. They claim that the NWS cannot,
by it's very charter, enter into competition with private concerns
unless the NWS can provide a service that is not currently available
to the public - which is true.

Currently, TWC and AW cannot issue their own severe weather statements
because that is the purview of NWS. What the Commercial Weather
Services Association wants to do is have a universal simultaneous
release of all data so they can get into the business themselves. It
seems, at first glance, to be a pretty simple and fairly reasonable
request.

The problem is that severe weather, and all the implications of the
consequences of same, are done by consensus. For example, if the
Storm Prediction Center in Normam, OK sees a situation building in
Alabama, for example, they will consult with the local NWS office and
come to a consensus as to the potential for severe weather, the type
of weather predicted, the timing of the weather event and just how
severe the weather forecast should be. That all takes time.

This bill would essentially say that NSWC has to release it's data to
AW and TWC and the public at the same time while still in discussions
with it's own offices/centers - the data has to be made available so
that more than just one interpretation, the NWS's, is available.

I know it's a technical sounding issue, but it leads to a couple of
different scenarios. The most drastic is competing severe weather
warnings. The second is the impact to business and insurance
interests which rely on objective weather impact data. Agricultural
interests/forecasts, so on and so on.

Business interests pay big dollars for forecasting, including six to
eight month prognostications - in particular commodity brokers have
great interest in weather data, so the immediacy of weather data is
paramount in making or losing money.

You can see how the bill would impact private forecasting. There are
also implications for future intrusion by privatizing the NWS leaving
the government with just the military meteorologists and information
which by it's very nature, is secret.

Personally, I don't much like the sound of this bill. It seems to leave
too much to the discretion of the Secretary of Commerce, among other
things.

Well, that's a good point, but it hasn't been all that different
through the years. What concerns me is taking the NWS private which is
a distinct possibility.

In either case, I don't like it and I've made my opinion known.

Again, sorry for the length.

Later,

Tom