Do we really need the National Weather Service?

Published on August 28, 2011 7:55 am PT - By Kevin Martin - Senior Meteorologist - Article Editor and Approved - Warren Miller

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(TheWeatherSpace.com) -- Fox News has stepped the line with me for the last straw, saying we do not need the National Weather Service.

Now there was a time when I did think the same thing. There are private companies and sites out there that can be more accurate than National Weather Service but that does not mean we do not need them.

Accuweather claimed at one point to want to get rid of National Weather Service because of competition factors in forecasting. This I did not agree with.

I once did think we didn't need National Weather Service until you figure out the Butterfly Effect method actually does tie into this.

The National Hurricane Center did not hype the storm up and they are not to blame for Hurricane Irene's dud in New York City, the media is. The media turned a minimal Hurricane into the apocalypse when it was nothing but a nor'easter without snow, but rain.

The media outlets have taken what they say and not understood it, twisting it around and going all crazy for nothing.

Now, what people who forecast need to understand is that without the National Weather Service or NOAA you would not be running your business. You do not own the radars, satellites, weather models, soundings reports, or any other data used in forecasting weather. If you do then you have an office in every section of the country and launch your own weather balloons.

There is a legit reason that National Weather Service is said to be more inaccurate by the general public than other private stations. The National Weather Service has guidelines, and these guidelines prevent their meteorologists from issuing some products until that criteria is set. Private offices do not have this responsibility like a government office so they can go all out, sometimes days before NWS even talks about it.

The other reason is private companies may have a better grasp on the data NWS' products like weather models are providing. I've personally asked NWS if they visited certain sites that have predictive radar and stuff and they said they did not. If they use the regular low resolution NCEP sites for the models then they would never get the small scale indices like other model sites provide.

So FoxNews had an article out and the link is here. (Click Here)

The article is a blatant attack on NWS and disregarding the larger image, private companies would not exist without them.

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