The role of private weather agencies

[dtrain44]

Frank, thanks - that's great information. I didn't know a lot of that.

[Derek Ortt]

our gov't, however, also makes "official" classifications when systems have not been officially classified

JTWC does this all of the time. So, while, IMO, accuwx was out of line in calling it a cyclone, one should also direct the same criticism toward JTWC

[Steve]

Private weather companies have their right to be in business. They do not, however, have the right to the exclusivitity of data paid for by the public. That is why I don't like Accuweather. And their defense of their position was laughable and showed their true colors. Like Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, They're only in it for the money.

Steve

[Portastorm]

Thanks for the great discussion, all.

I absolutely agree that private weather services should be allowed - that is fundamentally a First Amendment issue. I agree with those posters who are arguing that these products simply aren't as good as what the government provides and that these efforts often overstep their boundaries. For example, the Accuweather crew calling themselves the "Hurricane Center" is just asking for confusion. There's no reason for them to do that other than to grant themselves quasi-official status and I simply don't agree with that.

The incentives that work well elsewhere do not work well in weather forecasting. The products that sell best are those that are moving further from the truth. I think that's really unfortunate. What I'm ultimately calling for is self-censorship: private companies can sell whatever they want, but they shouldn't a lot of the time. It may be a naive perspective, but freedom of speech comes with responsibilities as well and I don't think that private weather services do very much to meet those responsibilities. Spreading one's opinion is perfectly cool, but one must also realize that the incentives that are there make it less likely that one will be open, honest, and objective. NHC forecasters don't have to interest anyone in order to keep their jobs: they just have to perform at a certain level. Accuweather guys aren't scrutinized as closely, bear no official responsibilities, and have their performance measured by what they sell and not what they do. That doesn't mean they shouldn't exist, just that they should be careful....

I was going to offer my two pesos on the subject but dtrain, your post is excellent and you've covered my position on this subject ... and btw, it's a good subject for us all to debate and consider. The dialogue has been great and thought-provoking reading for me.

As an Accuweather prosite subscriber, I value the services they deliver to me for the money I pay each month. However, I am NEVER going to take their word on the classification of a tropical system without confirming with the NHC. The NHC are the experts and their service is to our public safety. Same goes for NWS and severe weather warnings. God help us all if we have a day when multiple private-sector and government weather agencies are issuing simultaneous weather warnings. Who to believe? And therein lies the danger when Accuweather goes labeling a tropical system prior to what the NHC says. In reality, the only people that had their lives upturned by Accuweather's action were us weather geeks on boards like this. I highly doubt anyone in the public caught wind of this and said "oh my gosh, 99L is now a tropical depression ... Mary, let's start boarding up the windows!"

I believe that companies like Accuweather are to augment and not supplant what we get from government weather agencies like NOAA. And, for the good of public safety and at the end of the day, I do feel strongly that we should have one authority and that would be NOAA (NWS and NHC).

[dtrain44]

Thanks, Portastorm. You make a very important point - in this case, it's not real likely that Accuweather changed any lives for better or worse. So, to some extent, the specific debate over 99L is really a tempest in a teapot, although the teapot happens to interest me greatly. I'm not sure that I'm persuaded by the point that Derek makes - I don't think the JTWC is making the effort to appeal to the public that Accuweather or certain TV mets are. Although, if official really does mean official.....

I think it's much more likely to become a significant problem if they were to get a little more aggressive about issuing watches and warnings, especially for non-tropical weather. Being an Okie and a weather nerd, I'm pretty used to evaluating changing weather conditions and have taken cover more than a few times. However, I'm still amazed by the things that people don't know around here in the heart of Tornado Alley. If private weather forecasters were to get into the watches and warnings in a more outspoken and direct way, I think it would cause terrible confusion and undermine public safety. It's not tough to imagine the same thing happening if private agencies are forecasting wildly different track/intensity estimates: if I were a relatively uninformed citizen in the NOLA area and there are projected landfall intensities that range from strong tropical storm to Cat 5 monster and landfall points between Lake Charles and Pensacola and a lot of people yelling really loudly to tell their version of the truth, I'd probably get out of Dodge, which isn't always a smart thing.

So, again: it's tough for me to see a really positive role for private weather agencies, unless they're able to consistently outperform the governmental agencies, which would of course exacerbate the above problem.....

[x-y-no]

Accuweather was not spreading misinformation on TD6, but if by chance they were then it was within their legal right to do so. You need to take a look at their Terms and Conditions webpage.

Actually they did. One can quibble about whether it is proper for them to declare tropical depressions and/or storms independent of the National Hurricane Center (although I would at the very least expect them to make it clear that the NHC *does not* agree) but in the case of TD6 they very explicitly claimed it had a central pressure of 988mb - a claim that was up on their site for over six hours - at a time when the actual pressure was something like 1009mb. The false claim remained on the site for at least three hours *after* a VDM was sent by recon with the correct pressure.

Now maybe it's their "legal right" to disseminate such falsehoods but I think we're entirely within our "rights" to loudly criticize them for it, especially in light of their history of trying to muzzle the NWS and their long history of attacking the NHC.

By the way, I can find no retraction or correction of that false data on their site. It has simply been erased with no comment. I feel justified in criticizing them for that practice as well. Imagine if the NHC had made such a blunder, left it up on their site for over six hours and then merely removed it without any comment or record? Can you imagine what JB would be saying about that?

Aside from that, TD6 was quickly upgraded within a few hours of Accuweather declaring it TD6. NHC was simply late on upgrading it because they had to wait for the recon data. The Accuweather Hurricane Center was correct in upgrading it.

That's true and many of us were saying it's a TD before the actual upgrade happened. So fine - but if they were responsible they would make it clear that NHC says different.

[Derek Ortt]

I believe what they cannot do is assign storm names. That would violate WMO protocol

JTWC cannot assign names. Instead, they assign the minokor TS (whatever number). I would have no problem if accuwx did that as I myself have called a system a numbered TS if I analyzed it as a storm

[Chacor]

Thing is, JTWC isn't supposed to be used by the public - NWS Guam does that function (not much difference though, NWS Guam still follows JTWC closely).

[Frank2]

Well, that's the official issue - NOAA (and it's related elements), as the meteorological representative for the United States (any private weather companies in this country notwithstanding), are required to follow WMO standards, since, if I'm not mistaken, each Country's Government (whether through military or public agency) is to follow this rule by having it's own meteorological service, and, is also why all weather, aviation and marine products (including observations), follow a standard format worldwide, to minimize any confusion or errors...

If those in meteorology were allow to follow the competitive rules of business, without any regard to standards (for example, if AW had gotten it's wish, and, the NWS was no longer responsible for the nation's weather observing or forecasting, and, if this trend spread to other countries, as well), then, it'd be total chaos - and very dangerous, when it comes to what the public around the world comes to understand when dealing with hazardous weather, and, even more dangerous, for those who work in aviation and for the marine industry...

There should be a rule that says weather forecasting is not entertainment - it's one thing to have those cute OCM feature stories seen on the morning news shows, but, that should be the limit of the matter...

Weather reporting is important, and, should not be handed over to those who's desire is to turn it into a career in acting...

[Downdraft]

Short and sweet of it to me is this. As long as the United States taxpayer pays for the technology that is used to collect the data then the United States Taxpayer has a legitimate right to the products created by it without charge. I hated the fact that I used to have to subscribe and in fact, still do for NEXRAD data that comes from a system I helped pay for. But since I like the format in which I receive it I don't mind paying it. We all know NEXRAD images of convective weather that are only refreshed every 30 minutes can be next to useless. Now a private company wants the data for free and then to charge for their interpretation of it. So take it a step further should the SPC stop issuing mesos or watches and let AW issue their own? I question their ethics simply as profit driven corporation and that being said I question their product.

[Downdraft]

385 Science Park Road
State College, Pennsylvania 16803
U.S.A.
Telephone: (814) 235-8650
Fax: (814) 235-8609
Web site: http://www.accuweather.com

Private Company
Incorporated: 1975 as Accu-Weather, Inc.
Employees: 335
Sales: $100 million (2003 est.)
NAIC: 513220 Cable and Other Program Distribution; 514110 News Syndicates; 514191 On-Line Information Services

AccuWeather, Inc. is the leading commercial weather service in the world. It provides forecasting, graphics, and other information to more than 235,000 print and broadcast media clients, as well as users in business, government, and institutions. More than 850 newspapers around the world print weather pages created by AccuWeather, which also supplies the Associated Press. Its content appears on 1,200 Internet sites as well, including its own AccuWeather.com. The company also has pioneered graphical weather content for wireless devices. The company gathers meteorological information from more than 200 countries through an array of 35 satellite receivers. It keeps about 100 meteorologists on staff, the largest assemblage of forecasters under one roof. It claims greater accuracy than either the National Weather Service or its archrival, The Weather Channel.

"AccuWeather, Inc.: Introduction." International Directory of Company Histories. Ed. Jay P. Pederson. Vol. 73. Gale Group, Inc., 2006. eNotes.com. 2006. 7 Sep, 2007 <http://www.enotes.com/company-histories/
accuweather-inc>

Trouble is have they ever proved that last claim?

[chadtm80]

385 Science Park Road
State College, Pennsylvania 16803
U.S.A.
Telephone: (814) 235-8650
Fax: (814) 235-8609
Web site: http://www.accuweather.com

Private Company
Incorporated: 1975 as Accu-Weather, Inc.
Employees: 335
Sales: $100 million (2003 est.)
NAIC: 513220 Cable and Other Program Distribution; 514110 News Syndicates; 514191 On-Line Information Services

AccuWeather, Inc. is the leading commercial weather service in the world. It provides forecasting, graphics, and other information to more than 235,000 print and broadcast media clients, as well as users in business, government, and institutions. More than 850 newspapers around the world print weather pages created by AccuWeather, which also supplies the Associated Press. Its content appears on 1,200 Internet sites as well, including its own AccuWeather.com. The company also has pioneered graphical weather content for wireless devices. The company gathers meteorological information from more than 200 countries through an array of 35 satellite receivers. It keeps about 100 meteorologists on staff, the largest assemblage of forecasters under one roof. It claims greater accuracy than either the National Weather Service or its archrival, The Weather Channel. But try as they might they still are no match for storm2k.org

"AccuWeather, Inc.: Introduction." International Directory of Company Histories. Ed. Jay P. Pederson. Vol. 73. Gale Group, Inc., 2006. eNotes.com. 2006. 7 Sep, 2007 <http://www.enotes.com/company-histories/
accuweather-inc>

Trouble is have they ever proved that last claim?

[Cryomaniac]

I believe what they cannot do is assign storm names. That would violate WMO protocol

JTWC cannot assign names. Instead, they assign the minokor TS (whatever number). I would have no problem if accuwx did that as I myself have called a system a numbered TS if I analyzed it as a storm

So someone could, in theory at least, sue Accuweather for calling 99L Gabrielle, when the NHC say it isn't?

Maybe someone should call a lawyer...

[Category 5]

The last few weeks it's become apperent to me that their role is misinforming the public.

[Downdraft]

385 Science Park Road
It claims greater accuracy than either the National Weather Service or its archrival, The Weather Channel. But try as they might they still are no match for storm2k.org

"AccuWeather, Inc.: Introduction." International Directory of Company Histories. Ed. Jay P. Pederson. Vol. 73. Gale Group, Inc., 2006. eNotes.com. 2006. 7 Sep, 2007 <http://www.enotes.com/company-histories/
accuweather-inc>

Trouble is have they ever proved that last claim?

Chad you got me laughing so hard I almost fell off the chair. My apologies for apparently not seeing that in the page I cited.

[Aslkahuna]

JTWC is in business for one reason and one reason only-the US Military. It's there to support them and to provide products that are suited for their use. That we are able to see their advisories although they are FOUO is because all government sites funded by by the taxpayers have to have public access and all data therein that is Unclassified or otherwise not restricted by law has to be Public Domain. JTWC does not name any storms only the official RSMCs do. Until and unless Accuweather becomes the official RSMC for the US (unlikely since WMO only uses Government Agencies for that purpose) then their Tropical Cyclone forecasts have to be declared unofficial and so disclaimed to be so and they have NO naming authority from the WMO for storms so to call the current Invest Gabrielle is totally inappropriate. OTOH, if they disagree with the US RSMC (NHC) then they can say so but so note that their disagreement does not represent an official forecast. Anyone who posts a forecast on a storm on this Board has to post such a disclaimer and Accuweather has to as well.

Steve

[pojo]

I had talked with personnel at NOAA (AOC) and CARCAH and they were saying that because Slackuwx had posted their 'official' Hurricane Track graphic online, the Bermudan Gov't had contacted the NHC to figure out why there a graphic was posted already when the NHC obviously hasn't named the Invest99 yet.

[flwxwatcher]

I had talked with personnel at NOAA (AOC) and CARCAH and they were saying that because Slackuwx had posted their 'official' Hurricane Track graphic online, the Bermudan Gov't had contacted the NHC to figure out why there a graphic was posted already when the NHC obviously hasn't named the Invest99 yet.

I would have loved to been a fly on the wall for that conversation

[Aslkahuna]

It's obvious that Meyers and Co. haven't taken into account the INTERNATIONAL implications of their actions. It's also clear that the events earlier this Summer are a major reason they are being as fiesty as they are right now.

Steve

[Downdraft]

What gets me is they consider TWC to be an arch competitor. TWC hasn't been in the real playground since John Hope passed away. While I do watch Abrahms for obvious reasons (male, chauvinist pig) the only real reason to watch it is it's better than a sleeping pill at night.