AccuWeather wants to shut down free data

"I am saying most companies with private mets do so from a national office and dont have local mets all over the country. that is where the local NWS office has the advantage."

Agreed - and that's why nothing I said would defend the national companies ;>

"As for the 2 yr degrees I was refering mostly to tv mets. I know the NWS and most private companies require 4 yr bachelors."

Gotcha - they aren't considered part of the commercial weather industry so wasn't sure how they got into this thread of public vs private but I see what you are saying.

- Rob
 
My take on the public versus private thread:

Public weather services should provide the information needed to save LIVES (and personal public property).

Private weather services should provide "value-added" information to save other private customers money. At the same time, private weather services should maximize their own profits.

Therefore, can the private sector forecast for NASCAR events? Yes, if they are adding value to the otherwise free services provided by the public weather services. Can the private sector claim that the public weather service should be prohibited from making venue-specific forecasts? Absolutely not! The public weather service is protecting LIVES. Warning folks in a stadium from lightning has absolutely no bearing on money!

In other words, most private sector companies' primary motivation is to maximize profits (regardless of their marketing information), therefore they need to get out of the "business" of saving lives (unless they are adding value to public weather services through a public-private partnership).

There are countless opportunities for the private sector to provide services to weather-sensitive customers to maximize each others' profits. Why then are certain private folks wanting it *all* for themselves? Think about it.


greg
 
"There are countless opportunities for the private sector to provide services to weather-sensitive customers to maximize each others' profits. Why then are certain private folks wanting it *all* for themselves?"

Where are people getting this viewpoint from? Have you actually read the letters?

"Warning folks in a stadium from lightning has absolutely no bearing on money! "

Nobody ever said that was off-limits. But warning folks that a light rainshower is approaching or that temps for opening pitch will be in the low-80's with RH of 45-50% and winds southsouthwest at 10 should be off-limits, and is under current law. It would not be off-limits under FairWeather.

- Rob
 
What's so big about NWS doing radio forecasts, etc? NWS is largely paid by taxpayer money, and thus is a public service. So why can't these forecasts be on the radio? Or a newspaper? Because it takes away from the private sector? Boohoo... Must there be privatization of everything?

Addressing the newspaper part.

For newspapers, why would the NWS would even considered doing forecasts for newspapers. Most newspapers weather is custom made with special graphics, forecasts, etc. Companies, like Accu Weather, The Weather Channel, Weather Central, Weather Data, do a good job in providing newspapers weather information.

Take the NWS OUN CWA, the Daily newspapers are: Ada, Altus, Ardmore, Clinton, Duncan, Durant. Edmond, Enid, Lawton, Newkirk, Norman, Oklahoma City, Ponca City, Seminole, Shawnee, Stillwater, Weatherford.

NWS GRR CWA the daily newspapers are: Battle Creek, Big Rapids, Grand Haven, Grand Rapids,Greenville, Holland, Ionia, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Ludington, Muskegon

If the NWS did a lot of daily newspapers within their CWA.s when would they have time to do other stuff. Bottom line is private industry is bettter suited to meet the needs of the newspaper industry.

Edit: Remember the local NWS offices usually have 10 forecasters that work 24/7.

Mike
 
If the NWS did a lot of daily newspapers within their CWA.s when would they have time to do other stuff. Bottom line is private industry is bettter suited to meet the needs of the newspaper industry.

Mike
Click to expand...

I'm not saying that private companies wouldn't be better suited for particular tasks. In the above case, yes, private companies would seem the be choice. However, why not leave it up to the people who have to pay for them (newspaper management, buyers, etc) to decide! Maybe they don't want a glitz-n-glamor graphics from some public companies, and would rather save the money, do a less eye-appealing weather section, and use the money elsehwere? Sure, for resources, private companies may be able to do a better job at serving the newspaper market, I never said they wouldn't. However, why is it a bad idea to give folks choices?! This isn't even saying the NWS would want to do newspapers, again given resources.
 
I would NOT like to see any privatizing in Aviation Weather. The Aviation Weather Center, the CWSU's and the various FSS provide timely advisories, forecasts, observations to wide variety of people. Also the WFO's provide local aviation forecasts. Only change I would like to see in the NWS is maybe have the CWSU's take over the local aviation forecasts to reduce workload from the WFO's.

Examples of the Private Meteorology sector is Aviation Weather.
Many private companies specialize in providing aviation weather data and forecasts to various clients. Visit various airports,the FBO's often have a computer avialable to look at weather data which is provided by private companies like WSI for example. Many major airlines have their own weather center with a staff of meteorologists, examples: American, Northwest, United and in the air cargo business: Fed Ex and UPS have their own meteorologists. The military have their own weather service.

Some examples of public and the private sector in Aviation Weather.

Mike
 
You should continue to see growth in the private sector of meteorology, the field offers so many opportunities in providing services to clients. With hundreds of meteorology students graduating every year in this country, and the NWS is not hiring as much, when they reorganized back in the 90's. I can see more graduates pursuing a career in private meteorology. All depends on their career goals. Quite of few private meteorology companies operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to keep their clients updated on various things.

In summary, I have nothing against the NWS or the private sector, just keep the data free and add more free data to all of us.

Mike
 
Talking about private vs public. I came upon this:

Baron/ERC Partnership with the National Climatic Data Center to Deliver Real-Time and Historical Radar Data and Products to the Nation --

Click HERE to read the Press Release
http://www.baronservices.com/News/VIPIR_24...rc_release.html

While a great deal of the ideas, software, technology, upgrading comes from the NWS, the NOAA/NWS research centers like Boulder, Norman, Washington DC and from the universities, private companies do have a role in helping make this technology possible, the government does contract private companies to make various stuff for the NWS. Examples: NEXRAD and UNISYS, Enterprise Electronics, when AWIPS came out, Northrup Grumman IT (Litton PRC) are examples of the public and private partnerships.Some examples of public and private partnerships.

Mike
 
From what I gather the issue seems to be whether or not the NWS should develop interactive graphic based software to display data. If there are already other private companies that are developing software that displays these data in a similar interactive graphic format then I can certainly see how they would be threatened by this. Either way I didn't see anything in those links that would threaten the free availability of NWS text products.
 
"The Aviation Weather Center, the CWSU's and the various FSS provide timely advisories, forecasts, observations to wide variety of people."

That's a new thread - apparently there is a growing sentiment within NWS / FAA that the CWSU's should be closed.

- Rob
 
What's so big about NWS doing radio forecasts, etc? NWS is largely paid by taxpayer money, and thus is a public service. So why can't these forecasts be on the radio?"

NWS has their own radio, NOAA Weather Radio (NWR), why would they want to do local radio stations.

Mike
 
While a great deal of the ideas, software, technology, upgrading comes from the NWS, the NOAA/NWS research centers like Boulder, Norman, Washington DC and from the universities, private companies do have a role in helping make this technology possible, the government does contract private companies to make various stuff for the NWS. Examples: NEXRAD and UNISYS, Enterprise Electronics, when AWIPS came out, Northrup Grumman IT (Litton PRC) are examples of the public and private partnerships.Some examples of public and private partnerships.
Click to expand...

I am a fan of public-private partnerships (you state a number of fruitful ones above). My organization is currently involved in a number of public-private cooperative research and development agreements (CRADAs) in which new applied research and or development of a new severe weather tool is done to benefit both the private industry partner in their customized delivery of value-added weather-sensitive information, and the public weather services for saving lives. There need to be more of these kinds of relationships, IMHO.

I am an opponent of the notion of some of the private met industry to drive wedges between themselves and decent honest meteorologists working in public weather services to protect lives and personal public property. Many of these private folks have the media on their side and use that to their advantage. They are rallying their media customers to bash the public weather services, and pointing out a few specific failures by the public services rather than conducting comprehensive statistical comparisons of entire data sets of operational prodcuts. This is very unhealthy for the meteorological community. Instead, both sides should work together.


g
 
The real issues on the NWS proposed new policy

Here is my reply to the original Slashdot post pertaining to the proposed policy that will allow the National Weather Service to compete with the private sector.


Dear Slashdot Community,

I am afraid you have been taken in by someone with a hidden agenda on the National Weather Service policy issue. The information originally posted (anonymously, I note, my name follows my post) pertaining to the commercial weather industry could not be farther from the truth.

Rather than wanting the National Weather Service to withhold data, we are 100% in favor of the National Weather Service releasing 100% of its data in real time. The National Weather Service DOES NOT release 100% of its data now. Among the examples of data it withholds are its real time hurricane wind field analysis and its new, faster, tornado detection algorithm. We believe that all taxpayers have paid for this information and all should have access to it.

So, what are the real issues?

I believe what the original writer really wants is a proposed change in National Weather Service policy to allow it to directly compete with the private sector to be approved. Proponents are trying to muddy the water with the phony “withholding data†issue.

Our position is that National Weather Service should not compete with the private sector in meteorology. We believe the proper role of the federal government is to:

• Create inftrastructure. Launch the weather balloons, take the observations, run the routine computer models, etc.
• Provide storm warnings for the public-at-large
• Perhaps provide routine forecasts for the public-at-large, but this one is debatable (i.e., more than 90% of the weather forecasts now in use come from the private sector, why expend taxpayer resources duplicating that effort?)

Everything else, besides forecasts and warnings for the public, should be done by the private sector. If you want a specialized product (note: not data), you could use NWS raw data to create it yourself OR hire a private sector company. The choice is yours now and we want it to remain that way.

The National Weather Service is proposing a change in its policy to allow it to directly compete with the private sector and use taxpayer dollars to create customized products. How would you like it if the government, with its huge resources and taxing authority, suddenly decided to reverse policy and use your tax dollars to compete with you??

If you watch The Weather Channel®, you are watching the private sector in action. The forecasts they present every eight minutes are their forecasts, not the National Weather Service’s. Most all television meteorologists do NOT present the National Weather Service’s forecast. If you get the weather from www.weather.com, www.accuweather.com, www.intellicast.com, etc., you are getting weather from the private sector. Note that all of these are FREE and will remain so regardless of the National Weather Service’s policy.

So, you may ask, why not let the National Weather Service compete?

That might be a good idea if you want to pay more in taxes or if you want to shut off the innovation in meteorology that has made the United States the envy of the world in weather. The private sector in meteorology invented: Tornado warnings, color radar, Doppler radar displays, color newspaper weather packages, computerized, animated television weather displays, weather web sites, etc., etc., etc. The National Weather Service did not invent any of this. For the latest in innovation, go to www.stormhawk.com, which was developed by my company, WeatherData, Incorporated.

Canada has already done what the U.S. National Weather Service advocates (allowing Environment Canada to compete with private industry) and it clearly was not a success. The Canadian government reversed course earlier this year. Why do we want to make the same mistake?

We believe a proper role of the federal government is to create infrastructure from which private industry can grow and prosper. To use an analogy, the federal government funds 90% (states 10%) of the interstate highway system but does not manufacture automobiles or run trucking companies. The highway infrastructure is there to allow commerce and the public at large to benefit.

We hope you will support the free and open exchange of data and support keeping and strengthening the current National Weather Service policy of focusing on its core mission (data, warnings and, possibly, forecasts for the public at large) and let the private sector in meteorology continue its innovative and pioneering role.

Please send your comments to: [email protected]

Thank you for your interest.

Mike Smith


 
Re: The real issues on the NWS proposed new policy

Originally posted by Mike Smith
The National Weather Service DOES NOT release 100% of its data now. Among the examples of data it withholds are its real time hurricane wind field analysis and its new, faster, tornado detection algorithm (underline added by Greg). We believe that all taxpayers have paid for this information and all should have access to it.
Click to expand...

Mike,

From what I know, the ORPG Tornado Detection Algorithm (TDA) was upgraded to rapid update capability (TRU) only in the most recent build. "Rapid update" in this incarnation means that data from new elevation scans is combined with volumetric TVS detections to coast and upgrade detections before the end of a new volume scan. Whether or not TRU data have been made available on the Level III and IV product feeds is unknown to me. But from my perspective, I'm not aware of any movement within the NWS to restrict these data to the public and private sector, rather that the infrastructure to do it hasn't yet been developed. Mike, for your benefit, I hope I'm right. I personally see no problem releasing that data to the public (that decision isn't mine) as long as they are accompanied by proper education and the data are not abused.

I'm going off on a tangent here, but it would be of great benefit to folks to understand that the Tornado Detection Algorithm (TDA) is a misnomer. It does NOT detect tornadoes, nor was it ever designed to do so. The original name of the algorithm while under development at NSSL was the TVS (tornadic vortex signatute) Detection Algorithm (also TDA). It was designed to detect gate-to-gate shear signatures meeting strength and depth criteria. Not all gate-to-gate shear signatures are associated with tornadoes. Further confusion results when the locations of gate-to-gate shear are often displayed as red triangles - the shape of a tornado funnel. The TDA is just one of the guidance tools available to meterologists for making tornado warning decisions. Is it trained to be used as a "heads-up" or "safety net" for meteorologists to then analyze the base radar data.


greg
 
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