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Most everyone takes weather forecasts for granted. I certainly do. They’ve become a natural part of our everyday lives: the thundercloud icon in the upper-right corner of our newspapers; the local meteorologist standing before a green-screen map of our neighborhoods. Weather information isn't simply mainstream—it’s something that’s constant, expected, and widely accepted as necessary.
Between five, seven, and ten-day forecasts, we have countless predictions of tomorrow’s weather at our disposal. The National Weather Service continues to provide a steady stream of free weather forecasts and advisories, offering everything from blizzard warnings to marine updates. And yet, with the sagging economy and the advent of better technologies, I can’t help but wonder if the National Weather Service needs to exist. At least, in its current form.
Could private weather firms be a solution to our economic woes? Believe it or not, there are hundreds of private weather firms out there. In fact, while most of them are dedicated to highly specialized areas like air quality, some claim they can handle the NWS’s responsibilities and argue that the NWS unfairly competes with the private sector. I suppose the larger (and more intriguing) question is this:
Would the American public actually pay for weather information?
Currently, the NWS is the main pillar of the country’s weather infrastructure. According to Wikipedia: "The NWS, formerly known as the Weather Bureau, was founded on February 9, 1870 through a joint congressional resolution signed by President Ulysses S. Grant. The mission of the NWS was "to provide for taking meteorological observations at the military stations in the interior of the continent and at other points in the States and Territories...and for giving notice on the northern (Great) Lakes and on the seacoast by magnetic telegraph and marine signals, of the approach and force of storms." The agency was placed under the Secretary of War because "military discipline would probably secure the greatest promptness, regularity, and accuracy in the required observations."
Over a century later, the NWS employs thousands and has 122 weather forecast offices. As part of the government, their forecasts are provided for free. Still, this paradigm might change. Private forecasting companies such as AccuWeather.com are rapidly expanding, maintaining that the NWS unfairly competes with them by giving a product away for free.
AccuWeather.com, which advertises itself as the “World’s Weather Authority,” claims that its information is received by over 110 million people each day. Employing over 400 people, a quarter of whom are meteorologists, AccuWeather runs a 24-hour weather channel; provides weather to local TV stations, newspapers, and radio stations; and produces daily weather videos for their website. The company has also developed services and applications for mobile technologies. Still, why would firms like AccuWeather or The Weather Channel ever attempt to compete with a government service—especially one that provides everything for free?
In many ways, principle.
In 2005, U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) introduced something called “The National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005” to the Senate. His piece of legislation was intended to prohibit the NWS from providing its services and products for free, arguing that the private sector was ready and willing to provide the same services. Interestingly enough, the bill received zero support, never came up for a vote, and Santorum lost his re-election bid.
Earlier, in 1991, the NWS even issued a policy statement promising that they would not compete with the private sector. However, private weather firms received something of a black eye in 1996: the former Commerical Weather Services Association (CWSA) convinced Congress that the NWS's frost-warning programs could be taken on by private firms. Rankled by the change, many farmers refused to pay monthly fees for frost warnings. However, when a deep freeze hit Florida in 1997, farmers were unprepared for the $100 million in crop damage that followed. While they succeeded in receiving congressional support, private firms were immediately branded as enemies and did not find much support for their monthly-fee structure.
AccuWeather, like other for-profit weather firms, has leveled criticism at the NWS for not being specific enough in their mission. According to their mission statement, the NWS has a maddeningly broad range of interests and responsibilities:
"The National Weather Service provides weather, hydrologic, and climate forecasts and warnings for the United States, its territories, adjacent waters and ocean areas, for the protection of life and property and the enhancement of the national economy. NWS data and products form a national information database and infrastructure which can be used by other governmental agencies, the private sector, the public, and the global community."
The mission statement is so unspecific, many argue, that the products and services the NWS can provide are virtually limitless. As such, private firms are forced to cater to the highly-specific needs of their clients, ranging from customized assessments of marine weather to predicting icy road conditions for school districts. As technology further develops and becomes cheaper, it would follow that private firms could do the same job as the NWS. Many private companies believe that the NWS’s duties should be limited to running advanced computer models and conducting research. Nothing more.
Still, any serious discussion of privatizing the weather industry (or, at the very least, reducing the NWS’s role) must take the enormous cost into consideration. For one, designing and launching weather satellites requires billions of dollars. As it stands, no company could possibly shoulder such an expense. However, private forecasters criticize the NWS for releasing highly routine forecasts. Free-market thinkers believe that the NWS should step aside and allow the private sector to do a better job.
Is it our right to know what tomorrow’s weather has in store for us? Should the NWS take their attention away from routine forecasts and focus on headier challenges? As more firms like AccuWeather throw their hat into the ring, the answer becomes murkier. While I applaud the entrepreneurial spirit and encourage the further advancement of meteorology, I’m unconvinced that private firms can better predict the weather than the NWS.
After all, paying $10 to learn that Cleveland winters are cold and windy isn't my kind of solution.
Comments
Technically speaking, NWS forecasts are not "free", rather, they area already paid for by our tax dollars. For about half the cost of a burger-meal PER YEAR, each citizen in this country has commercial free, "just the facts" forecasts available to them. Oh, and...guess where Accuweather gets their data from...for free? That's right...the NWS. So, imagine paying your taxes to collect the data, launch the satelites, and run the forecast models...only to have to turn around and pay for a forecast??? I don't think so!
I was kind of amused by this article. The NWS is a part of the NOAA, which handles the lionshare of weather and climate research for the nation. Private weather services are using hard-won weather and climate data that the NOAA has produced from theirs sources such as satellites, Doppler radar stations, weather balloons, etc. No private company can afford to produce the volume of high-quality scientific data the NWS produces. This far-thinking agency is why tornado-prediction has become possible, and hurricane-monitoring accurate. Their forecasts are free of hyperbole and conservative in their assessment. They set the standard that all the private weather services emulate. Accuweather is but a pale shadow of the information the NWS provides.
Accuweather is a joke. It takes data from government sources (satellites & radars)...puts a frilly bow on it and sales it.
They are a media company...they don't know anything about the "hard" science that is in the radars or satellites.
Anyone that says otherwise has accuweather stock or is a paid lobbist.
Just another company looking for a free government lunch...
"[Accuweather] employing over 400 people, a quarter of whom are meteorologists..."
I stopped reading there... I would agree with the previous poster. They are just a media company. Don't trust them to build the car, just wash and wax it for you...
The sad fact is that private weather companies, who have access to all of the products offered by NWS/NOAA, still are far less reliable/accurate with their weather forecasts. Accuweather does not have the nickname of crappuweather for nothing!
You are forgetting something. The National Weather Service also issues tornado warnings. Why do you think AccuWeather does NOT want to take this responsibility away from the National Weather Service? Think about it...AccuWeather neglects to issue a tornado warning when someone is paying for their service. People die. There will be lawsuits against AccuWeather galore. Next thing you know they're bankrupt settling all the lawsuits! (Maybe this isn't such a bad idea after all!)
No we need the National Weather Service worse than ever now. And for 7 dollars per tax payer PER YEAR this is the best bargain going in government. Think of all the life saving information you get from the NWS for 7 dollars a year!
One of the many reasons why I imagine the National Weather Service issues daily forecasts is so their forecasters are on top of it when the big storm comes. Also the daily forecasts build credibility so the public and media listen when it counts.
As for privatizing warnings...could you imagine the chaos if 10 different companies were issuing 10 different warnings for the same tornado? What if 7 warned and 3 didn't? People could die while they try to figure out who to listen to. There is a certain authority of a gov't agency that private companies just can't attain.
What would be next? Privatizing the military?!? oh, yeah...that already happened. It was called Blackwater.
When Katrina was forecast to hit, 90% of New Orleans evacuated safely because of the National Weather Service. Why would we stop one of the most respected US Government agencies from giving the American public what they already pay for? The only benefit would go to Joel Myers, owner of Accuweather, not to the American public.
I know the meteorologists at AccuWeather and they are professional group of meteorologists just as you find in the National Weather Service.
They work with the limitation of attempting to forecast weather for the whole the nation from their one office in State College, PA. That means that unlike the Mets in the NWS, they have to rely a whole lot more on the models, whereas the Mets in the NWS have exact experience for the area they forecast. Also there are a dozen NWS Mets for each of the NWS 122 Forecast Ofcs. No private company can compete with that professional ability throughout the nation.
WE MUST KEEP THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE.
Let's see, since private weather firms receive most if not all their information, from radar to satellite to model forecasts to NWS graphical forecasts directly from the NWS, without charge (because it's public domain), how could they survive without the NWS? The private weather industry operates analogous to a home builder that receives their building materials for free. Anyone know such a builder?
Finally, Greg is exactly right when it comes to warnings. The responsibility/liability for such a venture is something the private sector does not want. The NWS is not perfect, but the long term fatality statistics for a variety of severe weather events suggest it succeeds in achieving its 24/7/365 mission to protect life and property.
So Paul wants everyone to believe that by country ridding itself of the NWS, this will SAVE money? Interesting idea, except for the fact that if that is done, who picks up the radar and it's data? Who will buy all the computers that produce the data? The private companies? If so, then they will have to just raise the price they charge to busineses, private citizens, etc. and this will just increase the cost but will it provide more accuracy? No! Plus, people will have to start paying for the Tornado warnings, like they tried in Oklahoma years ago? Guess what? People whose tax dollars pay for the NWS (I hear that those who work for the NWS pay taxes too), want this service 24/7 and not have to fork over money to get a service that the NWS provides. I too grew up in Cleveland and the I understand the weather there, and guess what Paul, it is just that, weather! Nothing really strange about it. However, if it came down to getting the NWS data vs from the privates like ACCU-Weather, the NWS will always have my business as the others are out there for the M O N E Y first... that is their bottom line.
Hmm, interesting proposition - shut down the National Weather Service and let commercial, fee-based forecasting companies take over. Now, if you shut down the NWS, there'd be no more weather ballons, no more satellites, no more radar systems, no more DOPPLER radar, no more ASOS (oops, now its gonna affect the FAA). No more free data to the world. Will Accuweather put its own satellites into the atmosphere, send up its own weather ballons, and build its own Doppler system? The Weather Channel, a powerful organization unto itself, doesn't pretend to be the be-all, end-all for weather, and I've even heard them talk about working in partnership with the Weather Service. Now, that works for me!
Oh yes, there is a p.s to this... Is Paul one those "wanna be" weatherguys? I wonder if Paul was offered a job as a NWS Met, if he would turn it down, for ah, matter of principle? Or the fact he would not want to be a part of one the few agencies in the government that actually is cost effecient and responds to the public need? Or would he "jump" at the chance to become a member of this close group of professionals that serve the public and are called.. "public" servants? Eh, Paul?
The National Weather Service plays a crucial role in today's world. Not only do they provide daily forecasts at no cost per say (as one person said they are paid for with tax dollars) for your home, but provide aviation forecasts keeping our asses safe in the air, and allows air traffic controllers to decide how to best manage the flow on the runways. They recieve the latest radar scans before anyone in the private industry. They keep people out of harms way by providing tornado, severe thunderstorm, flood, etc. warnings, does accuweather do that? Nope, they get that info from the NWS. As one person (Liz) already put "Accuweather [and other private industry companies] is but a pale shadow of the information of the NWS provides." Besides can you pick up a phone and talk to a forecaster personally at Accuweather? Nope....Simply said without the NWS people will die because of the lack of proper weather information being deceminated. If anything the NWS needs to be expanded not shut down!!
Will Accuweather establish relationships with every city, county and state emergency manager in the country? How about going out to schools to teach kids about weather? And can you imagine a country where every private company is issuing warnings?...Accuweather says the hurricane will hit Houston while The Weather Channel says Corpus. What a mess!
It looks to me like most of these responses were written by those no good, lazy, NWSEO members who are against moving forward in any direction (except backward).
Correction to last post:
It looks to me like most of these responses were written by those no good, lazy, NWSEO national and regional officers (as well as the few members that actually believe in their conspiracy theories) who are against moving forward in any direction (except backward).
I say that we get rid of Accuweather and NWSEO. I have heard that Accuweather badly mistreats their employees by making them work rediculous hours (without compensation and by making each employee sign a no-compete contract), and it seems that NWSEO (the NWS Union) is against moving forward since it might require.
Would you ask soomeone who just got out of medcal school to do surgery on you, or would you want someone with more experience. That is the same 'idea' if you compare Accuwx to the NWS. Most accu weather meteorologist (not all) but most just got out of school and can barely pay thier rent...let alone would I be willing to have them issue warnings on storms (that may mean the difference between life and death).
Corrected for spelling
Would you ask someone who just got out of medical school to do surgery on you, or would you want someone with more experience. That is the same 'idea' if you compare Accuwx to the NWS. Most accu weather meteorologist (not all) but most just got out of school and can barely pay thier rent...let alone would I be willing to have them issue warnings on storms (that may mean the difference between life and death).
I'm curious who would maintain the weather information network the NWS uses to get it's information to the public. The NOAA weather radio transmitters and such would also be a the mercy of who in terms of maintenance and content. The doppler radars probably have a rigorous calibration requirement, and need to be fixed quickly if something breaks in bad weather. How would accuweather handle these challenges.
to BH about their post in "moving ahead". I guess moving forward is to start paying higher prices for weather and start paying for warning, statements, radar data, etc. Also, how about those talking "heads" on like TWC, who take what is provided and provide others with information that is given to them. Also, ask those that used to work for (or even those that are still working for), ACCU-Weather if they EVER put in for jobs with the NWS? How many would turn down the opportunity? Also, how many have actually said NO? Then I bet there are those who applied for vacancies thate were not selected by the NWS who might have a small "axe" to grind? Point to all this is that, the only reason why the private companies do not want the weather service around is that it cuts into their profits and they don't believe in healthy competition (oh wait, I read somewhere that the NWS was not allowed to compete with the privates). There is room in the weather business for an organization like the NWS, who has been around much longer than Accu-Blather and their ex-employees who are now with the NWS are glad they got out while they could.
Paul,
Your article addresses what I've firmly believed for many years. Why would someone pay for valuable weather information that the National Weather Service offers for free? As a dedicated NWS meteorologist and a former Accu-Weather employee, I can tell you from my experience that the NWS has far better local expertise when it comes to tailoring the forecast for their area of responsibility. The NWS has a loyal following of cooperative weather observers who share their reports with us which in turn get posted on our website along with up to date radar information and a variety of other detailed weather information...all of it at no cost to our customers. How can you beat that?
A very interesting debate and one I have heard before. I think however the point is somewhat moot. There is no private company out there that could gather the resources to replace the NWS should it shut down. As others have said, the NWS (and thus the United States taxpayer) have invested heavily in radars, satellites, monitoring stations, radio transmitters and more, all with the goal of saving lives in increasing awareness about weather. I am sure these private ventures would love for the NWS to give them all of this and then close up shop but that isn't going to happen nor should citizens want that.
I would recommend taking a look at Britain and their Met Office for the alternative - and it isn't a good one. British citizens are starved for more information about the weather but because so much of it is 'for pay', they are frozen out.
John P., check again. The article's author does NOT want eliminate the NWS. Jeez!
It looks as though your responders have a very clear picture of what the world would look like sans the NWS. I say go for it, IF and ONLY IF the private sector is willing to fund all the infrastucture detailed above. As long as my tax dollars are providing radars and satellites and super computers and observational platforms and so on, I want the information they yield as part of the package.
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