Houston Chronicle Headline-U.S. Forecasts Lose Edge

[vbhoutex]

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Weather-service-s-dated-storm-protection-puts-4415382.php?t=b19daa3235
I'm interested in our members thoughts on this.

[WeatherGuesser]

I see it as the media attacking the NWS. Aren't there a few of them that would like forecasting privatized? They (one in particular) seem to be saying 'we can do it better'.

I'd rather see the NWS tell some of them to butt out.

As far as I'm concerned, if the NWS doesn't say it, it isn't official and it doesn't matter. Private services are an addendum to the NWS, nothing more.

[randge]

My thoughts?

People keep trying to entice me to subscribe to the Houston Barnacle. They're at the Kroger's. They're at the front door. Frankly, I can't be bothered. I never see anyone reading it.

If it's in the Houston paper and hasn't been ripped off Reuters or one of the wire services, it may be safely ignored.

[MGC]

I was listening to Coast to Coast last night....besides talking about the pending alien invasion, the guest was talking about the space program. Guest (can't recall his name) claimed that private enterprise is doing a far better job getting payload into space at about half the cost of NASA. I think this trend will find its way into many government functions including weather forecasting. I think the government will contract with several weather services in the future. I'm sure private forecasters can do just as good of a job as the NWS is doing now and perhaps at a more favorable cost structure....MGC

[RL3AO]

Its gotten to a point where making money to travel to low-Earth orbit is possible. Thats why we are seeing companies like SpaceX. Of course there are ways to make money in the private sector of meteorology. Businesses are discovering the value of private weather forecasts and they are paying for them. However, Accuweather isn't investing a billion dollars to launch a weather satellite. They will continue to use the ones the US government launch. They aren't going to invest in their own global weather model on the scale of the GFS or ECMWF. There isn't any profit to be made.

How can private business take over severe weather warnings? There is no money to be made. You can't make people pay to be able to receive tornado warnings.

[MGC]

The government will do away with NWS and contract a private weather service to issue forecasts, warning ect....MGC

[WeatherGuesser]

How can private business take over severe weather warnings? There is no money to be made. You can't make people pay to be able to receive tornado warnings.

Maybe not, but then again.......

Look at Environment Canada and some of the European countries where radar and other data either isn't available to the public, or they charge for access. If weather goes private here, you can say goodbye to free feeds that make programs like GRX and WXMesg work. And all those feeds that people use on their personal websites too, including the Warnings scrolls.

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[MGC]

Indeed, in this budget enviorment anything is possible....Just learned today that all Blue Angles air shows are canned because of the budget......MGC

[RL3AO]

Look at Environment Canada and some of the European countries where radar and other data either isn't available to the public, or they charge for access.

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That would require a massive change in US law. The taxpayers pay for those radar sites. We pay for the satellites. We pay for the American models. They belong to us. I'm not saying congress can't change the law, but it would be very difficult and I just don't see it happening.