The Future of Free Weather Data on the Internet 312
An anonymous reader writes "The National Weather Service wants to update a 1991 policy that limits what data it can put on the Internet. The proposed new policy makes putting free data on the Internet official. The Private Weather Sector wants NWS to provide its new digital forecasts only in specialized data formats and would like NWS to shut down new XML data feeds. Barry Myers (MS Word doc), president of Accuweather wants you to have pay before using Kweather and other similar tools. Myers is asking friends to comment against the new NWS policy by June 30. Should we have to pay twice to get weather forecasts?"
It should be free (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So do something about it. (Score:3, Insightful)
[The following text is public domain and may be used without attribution]
I have just read over your proposed policy change, as well as Barry Meyer's response, available at this address: http://www.weatherindustry.org/BARRYMYERS-AMS-031 8 04.doc . I must say that I cannot possibly disagree with Mr. Meyer more. The NOAA is a publicly funded institution providing data that could never possibly contain anything
Re:It should be free (Score:3, Interesting)
consider accurate weather forecasting to be critically important to business,
Absolutely.
I remember years ago visiting a private weather forecasting outfit in the central valley of California, probably one of the richest agricultural producing regions in the world.
They had very impressive facilities and were able to provide farmers with the detailed kinds of information about soil moisture, predicted rainfall, temperatures high and low, what the weather was forecast to be on a hourly basis, etc. This wa
Who pays for it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who pays for it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who pays for it? (Score:5, Funny)
Rejoice in the freedom of information act.
taxpayers (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who pays for it? (Score:4, Insightful)
We do and should! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We do and should! (Score:3, Interesting)
In any case, I never said that this information should not be free (as in beer AND speech). I firmly believe that any time the taxpayers pay for information that we all have a right to that information. What I don't believe is that taxpayers sh
Re:We do and should! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who pays for it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's use severe weather as an example.
You need a single organization for severe weather coverage to ensure public safety. Imagine if you had multiple companies issuing conflicting severe weather warnings? Since it is an issue of public safety, it makes sense to have a government agency in control of these statements.
In order to provide severe weather coverage, the government needs to:
(a) collect significant amounts of data (observations, satellite, radar)
(b) process that data into certain forms (forecasts, models, etc)
Since we are paying for this service, why should access to the data be limited?
Re:Who pays for it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine this situation...
Category 3 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. One agency issues warnings for Texas/Louisiana Coast, the other agency issues warnings for Texas/Mexico border.
What do businesses/homeowners do? Evacuations and closings cost BILLIONS of dollars and you have two widely spaced areas that have been warned.
This shouldn't be hard to imagine because, it has happened in the past. One agency was the NWS (TX/Mexico) and the other was AccuWeather (TX/LA). Now, AccuWeather couldn't put out warnings, but they put out forecasts that differed significantly from the NWS. Luckily, people generally listen to warnings over forecasts, so there was little impact.
As far as "who is responsible", do you honestly think that AccuWeather or Landmark Communications (Weather Channel) would be in business if you could sue them for incorrect forecasts?
As to conflicting warnings, I assume that most of the warnings would be the same type of stuff and that the public could make decisions based on a consensus model or majority of warnings thing.
Bwah, ha, ha, ha, ha. Thanks, I needed a laugh.
The biggest weather threats to personal safety all develop fast and are highly unpredictable. The path and strength of hurricanes, snowstorms, and tornadic mesocyclones are hard to predict - there are too many variables and not enough observation resolution to allow to highly accurate models 100% of the time.
During these times of crisis, you want the public to weigh each of options and try and make a informed choice? In the case of tornados, seconds can be the difference between life and death.
Imagine what the public hears the night before a Nor'easter:
"Well, ABC is saying that we are going to get rain. NBC is saying 30" of snowfall by tomorrow night, KYW is forecasting a dusting, and FOX has it sunny and warm throughout the weekend."
And you want them to make a decision on this? This is the same public that has caused hair dryer manufacturers to put "Do not use while sleeping" on their product.
More likely I would think that if I have health or homeowners insurance or other policies that weather is likely to affect, that the insurance company would have a preferred weather service that they would require me to use when it comes to things like whether or not to board up my windows and vacate the area.
Homeowners insurance is based on climatological data, not on instantaneous weather conditions. As I said before, no forecast is going to protect your house if a tornado hits it; basing personal property insurance on an instantaneous occurrence doesn't make actuarial sense.
Furthermore, an insurance company will take whatever steps are necessary to limited claims. This means that they may require those covered to "close up shop" at the drop of a hat. Such closings cost those covered significant amounts of money.
On the other hand, a government agency does what is best for the public. There is no pressure to try and "scoop" the competition with an early warning (which we have seen time and time again with TV weather people). They realize that issuing warnings that prove false only wastes money and erodes confidence in their product.
Bill C.
Re:Who pays for it? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is probably the strongest argument against an exclusively private weather service. The private companies are probably better off with the public having free access to NWS forecasts just for reducing liability.
As I've mentioned elsewhere, the functions of the NWS are entirely consistent with the "general welfare" and "interstate commerce" clauses of the Preamble to the US Constitution (and also the "National Defense" caluse as well - weather is important to military operations).
Re:Who pays for it? (Score:3, Insightful)
NOAA, FEMA, and state emergency management groups work together in the event of a disaster. They create plans ahead of time as to who will do what in order to avoid confusion. So it's NOAA's responsibility to dec
Re:Who pays for it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who pays for it? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not about a government monopoly on weather services. The government has been providing this information for decades. It is, in fact, the very data that private weather services use to base their forecasts on. Accu-Weather and other corporations do not want to stop the government from producing this data -- they want to limit the government to providing it only to corporations, not to private citizens, so that they can resell the information that we taxpayers have already paid for back to us at a profit.
In addition, this would prevent some other entrepreneurial meteorology graduate student from using that data to make forecasts for local ski areas and eventually starting a weather company of his own
Whenever taxpayers subsidize a service that could be provided in the marketplace, that subsidy undermines the development of true competition for that service.
The private weather companies are not asking the National Weather Service to get out of the weather data collection and weather forecasting area. Those companies absolutely depend on the thousands of hourly observations collected by the NWS, on the computer forecast models generated by their supercomputers, etc. What those companies are demanding is that the NWS provide this data -- which we the taxpayers have already paid for -- only to the corporations, not to the taxpayers.
Any time Accu-Weather wants to pay to establish a network of thousands of observation stations to get the weather data they depend on, buy a few of the world's largest supercomputers and develop their own software to run models, launch satellites to track global weather, etc., then they are entirely within their rights to make that data available only to their customers. But we pay for those stations, for those supercomputers, for those satellites, and all the rest -- the very services that Accu-Weather and other corporations depend on to generate their own forecasts -- and we have every right to the data generated from them in any and every format that the National Weather Service -- the people employed by the taxpayers to do the job -- wants to give it to us, their employers, in.
Re:Who pays for it? (Score:5, Interesting)
An artificial scarcity of data does nothing to help the people paying for it via their taxes. It only serves to help the bottom lines of a few large corporations whose only responsibilities are to themselves, not the citizens of the United States.
The services that are currently "experimental" or whose ultimate availability is unknown due to pressure from certain members of the Commercial Weather Industry should become permanently and freely available to anyone wishing access to it.
Back when data dissemination costs were high, it made sense to limit the NWS role in giving data to the public. By allowing only a few organizations to have access to the data and allowing them to sell it, those organization would pay the rather high costs to ensure the data was, in fact, available.
However, now that communication costs are so low, such a method makes no sense.
A recent letter from Barry Myers to members of the Commercial Weather Industry pleading for them to come out against the NWS Partnership Policy, he stated:
"Industries grow where risk is controllable or predictable. The present path of the NWS- controlled federal policy introduces greater risk to the private sector. Not less."
In this case, he is partially right.
However, the risk he is actually talking about is the ability for large commercial weather organizations to maintain a stranglehold on the sector.
You see, the products that NOAA currently offer, themselves, pose no threat to AccuWeather or other large organizations. It is just data, and most people don't want to look at coded data. They want an end product.
By allowing data to flow freely to the public, the NWS ENCOURAGES competition to the incumbents. Barriers that prevented bright entrepreneurs from pushing new services are greatly reduced and a new era of value-added products will be born.
To this end, I see no alternative but for NOAA to provide the services it currently does in a permanent, free fashion as well as to develop other offerings that benefit the taxpayers as it sees fit.
Re:Who pays for it? (Score:3, Insightful)
which is slated to be repealed if the new proposal goes through. The docum
A replacement will not take long (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A replacement will not take long (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A replacement will not take long (Score:3, Informative)
Not that it is in any way a replacement for a government service, but The Weather Undergound [underground.org.hk] of Hong Kong, and presumably affiliated groups [wunderground.com], do have their own weather stations, though most of their data is from government observatories. But I think witout weather satellite photos, no one can conme anywhere near current state-of-the-art.
Re:A replacement will not take long (Score:3, Insightful)
As for the public not sitting on a metric buttload of weather measuring gear, they weren't sitting on a metric buttload of WiFi gear at first either. If local measurement ever went open source, I suspect you'd see a lot of measuring equipment show up on the market.
Re:A replacement will not take long (Score:2, Informative)
'Open Source' weather collection would give a more accurate picture of statistics. If there are a few closed weather centers with high accuracy equipment to say a few hundred thousand people contributing to and open system. The system with more people even though running with 'poorer' equipment, would give a better overview, as the results of weather statistics is that of averages
Re:A replacement will not take long (Score:4, Insightful)
Mod parent down.
I am a pilot who flies in the USA and in Europe. In the USA, weather information is free. In Europe, it is not. NO open source weather network has sprung up in europe. The TV news provides some information, but very very little of interest to pilots.
The thing is, given all the airports already in place who could benefit from this (that is to say, a distributed set of reporting stations), you'd think that your sort of community network would just spring up. Well, it hasn't and won't. Why? Because the competitive market has turned out to be a pretty efficient mechanism for bringing weather data to those who need it.
Should be free. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, Accuweather is a commercial venture designed to profit by delivering weather content to television studios and radio stations. They own no balloons nor weather stations nor sattelites. Why should we have to pay them anything? They only want to diversify their grip on the nutsack of private weather.
Re:Should be free. (Score:2, Troll)
Most of the posts also miss the business model. The government collects the raw data, and that is made freely available. What Accuweath
Re:Should be free. (Score:3, Insightful)
But there are, currently, dozens and dozens of small weather forecasting niches. People do weather forecasting for hang-gliding, or surfing, or wind-surfing, and do this by interpreting available NWS data.
If the change in enacted, almost all of these small-time forecasters will go away. Anyone who wants weather information will be able to get it, either by paying accuweather, or by writing their own tools to interpret the freely available raw data. I have writ
Re:Should be free. (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed. I am all for Accuweather and others using freely available data to produce forecasts suitable for various consumers. If they are adding substantial value, they will have no problems staying in business.
The fact that they believe freely available data will kill their business model makes me wonder if THEY believe that they add substantial value!
If they're not doing anything that can't be managed by any enthusiastic ameture with an internet connection and a bit of (possibly Free) software, they SH
Horseshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutist Libertarian drivel. You mean I can start up any business that dies something the government does, and then force the government not to do it anymore? So, if I start a business of printing IRS tax forms, and want to charge $50/ea. for 1040 forms, I can forc the IRS to stop printing and distributing them free?
Why not let the government do the things it can do efficiently, and for the greater good, and let the private sector worry about the things it can do most efficiently? Free weather data is a huge benefit to all... like a (mostly) free road system. Why privatize it just so someone can extract extra money out of people?
No one missed the business model. That Accuweather adds value by interpreting data doesn't perclude other individuals from getting the data the National Weather Service collects and doing the same thing for free. That's what the Accurweather people are asking for... a ban on the free flow of information. They want to privatize this public knowledge under lock and key, so they and they alone can profit from it. People aren't looking to shut down Accuweather... they are just asking for the same priviledge that Accuweather has.
A value-added business model is perfectly fine. But if you cannot make a profit off of a freely available resource that you add value to, then you should find another business model, not try to privatize the free resource.
Bogus analogy. Microsoft and Apple own their platforms. And yes, as owners of those platforms, they could close them to outside developers. Windows and OS X systems are open in that anyone can develop software for them. Apple and Microsoft know that if they tried to control the platforms to that level, they'd be sunk, because there's no way for them to develop all of the software people would want on a PC. The market wouldn't tolerate it.
Have you tried to develop software for a the PS2, Game Cube, Xbox, or other gaming platform? Those aren't open systems. You have to get the developers kits from the owners of those systems. Do you see the /. crowd howling about that all day?
Accuweather doesn't own the data collected by the national weather service. They have no part in creating that data. Closing the data to the general public because Accuweather wants to protect its business interests would be like Red Hat closing the source to Linux because they want to protect their revenue stream.
Re:Should be free. (Score:5, Insightful)
When Accu-Weather establishes their own network of thousands of automated and manned data collection stations, when they launch their own weather satellites, when they buy some of the world's fastest supercomputers and write global weather modelling software for them, when they set up hundreds of radar stations, and when they get a time machine to gather weather records from a hundred years before the company was founded, then they might have the right to deny information critical to life, safety, and livelihood to anyone other than their paying customers.
But since we, the taxpayers, own all of that, no private company -- not Accu-Weather, not anyone -- has the right to restrict the benefits of those taxpayer-owned resources to themselves.
Accu-Weather was not the first private weather company. If a system such as they want, where some or all data is limited to distribution solely to existing corporations, then Accu-Weather would never have been born. A grad student named Joel Myers wouldn't have had access to the data he needed to start making forecasts for local ski areas, and eventually expand that to a worldwide weather service. Of course, that scenario is exactly in Accu-Weather's best interest. Remember, while it's in our interest, as consumers, to have open competition in any given market and a wide array of choices, it is in the interest of the companies in that market to reduce competition and to raise the highest possible barriers to entry into that market, to protect their own position. That's what this is all about.
Re:Should be free. (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that technology makes is very cheap for the government to distribute this information the NATURAL free market result is that the private weather companies die. They no longer have a valuable service to provide.
If these private weather companies had been the ones investing in weathe
Re:Should be free. (Score:3, Insightful)
Amen, brother!
Below, my own unworthy letter to the NWS regarding the proposed policy, complete with cc's.
As a SERVICE, subsidized by government tax revenue, the NWS should provide all raw and processed data that it generates, to the public for no additional charge above and beyond the original tax revenue that was collected.
Paying for my weather twice, in the form of having to pay
Re:Should be free. (Score:3, Insightful)
PC weather tools (Score:3, Informative)
Are there any good non-adware PC weather tools? Being a true geek, I sometimes don't look out a window for days at a time. Besides the infamous Weatherbug [pchell.com], what else is there?
Re:PC weather tools (Score:3, Informative)
The weather module of GKrellM. http://web.wt.net/~billw/gkrellm/gkrellm.html
btw. could those stealing middlemen stop nagging that their stealing businessmodel stops working.
If they had setup devices of their own and had financed all self instead of piggybacking on the Government weather services that are paid by us, not them.
Re:PC weather tools (Score:2)
Re:PC weather tools (Score:2, Informative)
The Solomon solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
Genda
Free Weather Could Save Lives (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't own a TV to be able to watch the weather on the local news, (thought I do have a weather radio), and for people like me, it can really be a good thing to have forwarning.
All that aside, this guy sounds like a real asshat because, while I could understand if the companies were doing any work, them wanting to make money, his complaint seems to be "Hey, don't just publish this information in a way anyone can get it for free, obfuscate it first so that we have a product to sell."
Of course, if all else fails you can easily tell the weather with just a rock and a string. First tie the rock to the string then hang it outside from a tree branch. When you want to know what the weather is outside, just look at the rock. If the rock is wet it's raining, if the rock is white it's snowing, if the rock is easy to see it's sunny, if the rock is hard to see it's cloudy. If the string is not perpendicular to the tree branch, it's windy. And if the rock is missing, tornado.
Do it ourselves, for ourselves (Score:5, Interesting)
So, write a Distributed Computing Client which downloads weather-satellite data from a handful of sat-dish-connected servers and predicts the weather. You'd need a great many clients doing the basic data-processing and a lot of higher-level nodes which collate the information, but in theory you could use weather satellites from all over the globe instead of just the ones your domestic weather service relies on... and probably build a bigger picture of the weather-system.
We slashdotters always say Data should be free, how could it be more free than if we generate it ourselves?
No thank you (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think so. If it were that easy then you could guarantee that it'd be being done already. You could argue for a distributed client and in some way it might be useful. But more of a priority should be figuring out how to design a system that's actually intelligent enough both to make reliable predictions and trustworthy judgement calls about th
Re:Do it ourselves, for ourselves (Score:4, Insightful)
What makes you think weather satellite transmissions would remain unencrypted if the weather industry lobbyists succeed in preventing the NWS from providing direct free weather information over the internet? These folks have built their industry out of packaging and distributing free government data, and now that new technologies have made distribution cheap enough for the government to provide the data directly to the taxpayer, they realize the free ride is over. So do they decide to offer new value-added services to maintain their audience? No, they want to surpress the competition.
Always keep this in mind when you think about free markets: free markets are the result of an equilibrium of self-interest. No company in a market acts in the best interests of the market - their urge is always to attempt to limit the market to serve only their own interests. When each competitor's interests serve to cancel out the interests of other competitors, free markets are self-correcting and flourish. But when limiting the market is in the best interests of ALL existing competitors, those competitors will act in cooperation to suppress the free market. That's why free markets don't work in a true anarchy - because in an absolutely free market the common interest of all factors in an industry will lead to the development of a cartel, and competition will tend to be limited to a stable equilibrium (until one competitor gains an advantage that allows them to wipe out the rest of the cartel and establish a monopoly).
Re:Do it ourselves, for ourselves (Score:3, Interesting)
makes it great for when you are camping and need to know upcoming cloud patterns heading your way and you dont have net access.
there are many more NOAA sattelites, but NOAA-17 is the newest and can be easily recieved on a handheld reciever without any trouble.
Won't Happen (Score:5, Interesting)
GroupShares Inc. [groupshares.com] - A Free Online Investment Community
Do your own Weather forcast... (Score:5, Informative)
Connect a 137-138MHz FM communications receiver or scanner to your soundcard and get colour images directly from overhead weather satellites. You can either build your own like I did or just buy a receiver.
For an explanation try:
http://www.emgola.cz/www_fa/meteosat_englis
and for a great tool: http://www.wxtoimg.com
Re:Do your own Weather forcast... (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe it's just me, but I could think of so many answers to that question.
Re:Do your own Weather forcast... (Score:2)
Middlemen (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry, but I don't agree. If I'm not mistaken, the NWS exists on public funds; the info should be public also.
Besides, weather can make an actual life-and-death difference in some scenarios... just ask any sailor or pilot. Also, how about tornado warnings and such... will you have to pay to get those as well? I'd like to see them try to extract payment for such life-saving info, and watch the avalance of negative public outcry... you'd be more popular if you kicked a puppy.
Re:Middlemen (Score:5, Funny)
I assume this means the NWS is allowed to tell people about impending doom, but nothing else. It follows, I suppose, that the proposed for repeal bit means they want to be allowed to tell people more than this. I have to admit I don't really understand the situation, not being in the US.
Besides, much simpler in England. If it's not already raining, it soon will be. Prepare accordingly.
Re:Middlemen (Score:4, Insightful)
I made an observation about the weather and its importance to daily life around the world one day when I tried to discuss the weather with the locals in the Philippines. (EH?) was the response. It never occurred to them that paying much attention to the weather was important.
They get weather there and some times quite severe, but I found that the reason was simple. They knew that certain days of the year it would be dry others wet and stormy. If the wind was blowing a certain direction at a certain time of the year, it told them what the weather was.
I suppose this is an over simplification but simply stated most of the world gets weather by the calender and by location. Weather in most of the world is pretty much boring. NORTH AMERICA and most specifically the Central Mississippi River Valley gets some pretty amazing weather. It is neither predictable by time of the year nor is it something that you can know by location. You cannot know it by wind direction and you cannot know it by other current conditions. It can bet amazingly dangerous or troublesome.
Rain in this region of the USA and southern Canada can be accompanied by most dangerous condtions. Rain in this area rains Fertilizer as well (Nitrate) which is natural in origin. As such weather is to those of us living in that area a pretty important thing. To the rest of the human race, they have a hard time understanding our preoccupation with it.
The logic of allowing US Government Weather Forcasting to be open to the public is an American Construct. It stems from our understanding that WE own our government. This is counter to the logic for most of the rest of the world. We are despite accusations to the contrary an Anti-Colonial force. The Colonial forces want to reoccupy our land and they are attempting to upset the logic so that they can force the middle men into weather just as they do in Europe and Asia. They are attempting to make everything even that which we have already bought and paid for into property we have to pay rent on. This is what the discussion is about.
The NWS for basic Info has a lot more to add to the forecast stuff than you might think. If you want to see my current conditions [noaa.gov] here they are. Clicking on the side links can give you a hint of the level of data that we expect for free.
Pointless (Score:2, Insightful)
It's life or death (Score:2)
Good weather data is frequently a matter of life or death in many fields, it's that simple. Restriction for commercial gain cannot be sanctioned by any government that desires to avoid the pitchforks of public fury.
In case this doesn't seem odd to you, consider your insurance options if forecast trends become a matter of "commercial in confidence" and you didn't prepare for that sudden storm, to name one example. Or, if you're a private pilot, perhaps an ultralight enthusiast, consider the expense of your
Australia went down this path.... OS won :-) (Score:5, Informative)
It's a really really useful tool. I use it at least a couple of times a week - basically anytime the weather seems a bit sus and I need to decide if to do a bolt from the office on my bike before a storm front hits, or to wait until it passes. The last four images thing lets you get a feel for which way the weather is blowing, etc, etc.
On Tuesday nights, when the Sydney Knights [yahoo.com] do their Tuesday Night Ride (TNR), we're all hitting the bom.gov.au site to see what the weather is looking like. If you ride a motorcycle and live in Sydney, Australia then you need to come on a TNR!.
Now Australia didn't seem to have the problem with the commercial weather services wanting to continue to charge customers for something that they already paid the government for... that's a whole new ball game. Still, I'm all for the gummint opening up public access to weather data in any jurisdiction - it's a really really really good thing. Let the snake oil sellers find a new flavour of snake oil - I've heard that the penis enlargement pill market is a good one.
That doesn't work in Office XP (Score:2)
Um, that does nothing but put a space in the hyperlink. You have to hold down ctrl then click. Opps.
Look here for a list of NWS contacts: http://www.stormready.noaa.gov/contact.htm. It has a name, address, phone and email for each offic
Re:That doesn't work in Office XP (Score:2)
To: fairweather@noaa.gov
CC: myersb@accuweather.com
"I am in favor of open-to-all weather data, on the internet, in standard formats such as XML. I am for the new proposed NWS policy, and I am against the position of Accuweather's president Barry Myers. But who cares, I'm just a citizen."
don't forget to send it to the official comments address in addition to cc'ing Mr. Friendly.
National Weather Service funding... (Score:5, Interesting)
I see no reason that we should have to pay for Accuweather to make a pretty graphic or the like. By opening up the data on the Internet you provide researchers, hobbyists, and tinkerers with a means to get up-to-date and accurate weather information easily as well as historical data.
NWS also talks about their Information Quality [noaa.gov] guidelines here - detailing their information and what is available.
Who knows maybe someone will develop a Weather@Home model which runs on the same principle as SETI@Home. It would be pretty cool to start doing climate models outside of the governments and universties Research labs...
Re:National Weather Service funding... (Score:4, Informative)
You mean,like these guys?
.doc as html (Score:5, Informative)
Better service needed (Score:5, Funny)
A copy & paste comment (Score:2)
Re:A copy & paste comment (Score:3, Insightful)
There are many very intelligent individuals here on
Well, let's do what he says! (Score:3, Interesting)
Chris Mattern
This "Business Model" Already Exist (Score:5, Informative)
I agree with others here, i.e. Personal use of NWS data have already been paid for and should not fall into the IRS/3rd party software business model.
Re:This "Business Model" Already Exist (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is, this requires either (a) buying tax software which includes this feature, (b) paying for a tax service which has their feature in their store, or (c) re-typing everything from your completed federal tax forms into an online form of some third-party company that you've never heard of that may or may not be free, depending on how much you've earned that year. Oh yeah, and
CWOP is Citizen Weather (Score:2, Informative)
With CWOP, all the data is sent to http://www.findu.com/ [findu.com] where anyone can retrieve the data.
Weather data is free this way, thanks to the support of Ham Radio operators internet infrastructure.
Darryl Smith, V
Accuweather Boycott Created (Score:2, Informative)
An accuweather boycott has been created at Boycott City [boycottcity.org]. However, it may take 24 hours before the boycott is officially added to the list and you can join. If you want to join, send yourself a reminder message to visit the site tomorrow.
This is my first experiment with such a system. The primary value of such an online boycott is that people can search to find out if people are boycotting a company - and why - before doing business with a company. As an added bonus, when you join a boycott it shows
Canadian Climate Data (Score:2, Informative)
Found a free archive on Environment Canada [ec.gc.ca] that does just that for all of Canada.
Argument over data format, not availability (Score:5, Insightful)
Make no mistake about it-- all of this data is publically available via FTP, or C-band satellite downlink (aka NOAAPORT). What the leader of the industry consortium (which does not represent all meteo firms by a long shot) is apparently protesting is NOAA putting out data in a modern format that ANYONE, not just meteorologists, may be expected to work with. He is, perhaps, upset with the notion that in this day and age of realtime data exchange on the Internet, it really doesn't take a BS in meterology and a publisher like a newspaper, TV station, or radio station to get the weather from the government to the people-- his business's model, acting as an interpreter that (for a fee) translates the data produced by the National Weather Service into something the public understands-- this model of business is becoming incresingly obsolete.
Any protests about NOAA supporting new and more accessible formats is a cynical cry for business or industry protectionism, nothing more. Which is a shame-- there is plenty of room for innovation in the weather industry-- niche forecasts specialized for markets where small-scale accuracy matters (like the agricultural and power industries), or more advanced and interactive web-based tools (like The Weather Underground's NEXRAD interface) can innovate the way the public look at weather data.
Support innovation, not protectionism!
Re:Argument over data format, not availability (Score:2)
Basically, there is no benefit to updating the formats for old companies like Accu-Weather, thus it's not surprising they would oppose the change. Newer/future businesses, by contrast, will welcome it, as it eases the data-acquisition and interpretation process...not to mention the fa
THIS JUST IN... (Score:3, Funny)
Let the NOAA know you want the data to stay free.. (Score:3, Informative)
Instead of bemoaning the state of the public sector how about actually doing something about it and actively lobby the people in power to keep this free?
Weather Display (Score:2, Interesting)
Put the free NWS data on your website! (Score:5, Informative)
Ok I have an answer (Score:5, Insightful)
fine. then the US government needs to increase Commercial use of NOAA weather data fees by 100 fold. Little Barry, in his childish hissy fit, fails to realize that the NOAA weather data is the property of the United States Citizens and Government... So let's appease him. Anyone want to intorduce legislation that any commercial use of NOAA data has higher fees and 20% of all profit made from said data must be paid back to help fund NOAA and other government weather research.
It's high time as americans we got off our lazy asses and start smacking around childish losers like Barry and other Company officials that while about people getting something that they pay for through taxes. do what you can to introduce new legislation to "bitch slap" these morons. if worded right it would go through in a heartbeat as it would be a new significan source of income and congresscritters can't turn their back on money.
some of the mapping companies tried this about 5 years ago with the USGS release of their tigerline data maps. they were whining that it would undermine their business and other equally stupid erasons for keeping the data OUT of the public's hands. but they still wanted the free access for themselves.
SUBMIT YOUR COMMENTS! (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the comment I submitted:
As a government agency, the purpose of the NOAA is to serve the public. Data which has been generated or collected using tax dollars belongs to the public and should be freely available to the public.
Information provides the greatest benefit when it is freely available and most widely utilized.
Thus far the NOAA has had a "non-compete" policy. I have no doubt the NOAA is receiving pressure from special interests to maintain that policy and to withhold data from the public. Business is a good and valuable thing when it provides the public with needed services, however the government should NOT be protecting unneeded redundant services at the direct expense and detriment of the public. The government should not be creating an artificial scarcity of information. The public should not have to pay a second time for information it has already obtained through tax dollars.
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Greek to me (Score:2)
Non-Compete (Score:2, Interesting)
The NWS neither had the funds, nor the infrastructure, to provide weather data to the widest audience possible so they asked the private sector to accomplish this for them (think 25 years ago). The private sector (5 companies Kavoris, Unisys,
Tech
Barry Myers's argument by age (Score:2, Insightful)
Broken windows fallacy (Score:3, Interesting)
But, also as a libertarian, I find it daft to deliberately block people who know stuff from telling it, so as to "create a market". Trade is a way to mitigate the unpleasant fact that some things in life aren't free. In aggregate it efficiently allocates resources and effort towards making things cheaper, ie: approaching closer to free.
When things actually are free for the taking, "creating a market" isn't efficient, it's wasteful. It's directly analogous to going around with a sack of rocks, "creating a market" for glaziers.
PS: this is also why copyrights and patents are a bad idea...
Re:It would be off topic to answer in detail (Score:3, Insightful)
FWIW, the parent post presents a fairly radical view of Libertarianism. Libertarians by and large, are not in favor of *no* government, but want the smallest, least intrusive government possible.
In the case of the United States, that generally means supporting the idea of a limited constitutional republic, with as much power as possible pushed down to the state, or preferably local level. This is so that decision making on
Where to send your comments: (Score:3, Informative)
Official comment address:
fairweather@noaa.gov
and
General D.L. Johnson
Director of the National Weather Service
DL.Johnson@noaa.gov
Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr.
Under Secretary of Commerce and NOAA
Administrator
Conrad.C.Lautenbacher@noaa.g
Secretary Donald L. Evans
Office of the Secretary, Department of Commerce
devans@doc.gov
Also find out who your congressman is at:
http://congress.org/congressorg/home/
Bad idea. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bad idea. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Stop setting up strawmen. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.1900storm.com
It's not a straw man argument. That was the greatest natural disaster (loss of life) in US history, and a significant contributing factor was that the fledgling US Weather Service didn't want to listen to the Cuban weather reports. Privatized weather companies may or may not be more willing to work and play together, but they certainly haven't shown the willingness to invest in the necessary infrastructure. Plus, in many countries private weather companies may *not* be able to cooperate, by government fiat.
Less government is generally better, but national infrastructure like weather services are a notable exception.
KeS
Yes! (Score:2)
Re:Shut down the National Weather Service. (Score:2)
If one would quit that Nation has a problem getting the ever so important data from the rest of the world.
Besides, wether you pay for the National Service through tax or (probably several) commercial Weather Bureaus by means of subscription, it still needs to be financed.
What about the government need for weather info (Score:3, Insightful)
AND, who do you think runs the data acquisition end of things. All of the airport-based weather stations could never be duplicated by private enterprise due to sheer scope.
And I imagine we all appreciate the pure research of the Storm Prediction Center and National Hurricane Center.
Re:Shut down the National Weather Service. (Score:4, Interesting)
With NWS data and forecasts limited to only established corporations, rather than entrepreneurs and the private citizens who pay for them, the number of corporations providing that service will tend to shrink due to mergers, buy-outs, business failures, etc. That happens in just about every industry, and weather data and forecasting will be no exception. People would be dependant on a very few sources of weather information with no checks or balances.
Now imagine that one of those corporations provides the weather forecasts to the state of Florida. One day, their forecast shows them that there will be a hard freeze in a couple of days, which will severely damage the Florida orange crops. A few of the top-level people in that corporation delay that forecast for half a day or so, so that they have time to call their brokers and invest in frozen orange juice futures. I think you can take it from there.
There are some things so critical to the public good that the public has, over the past few hundred years, determined that it is in our best interest to jointly contribute to maintaining those services for ourselves, via our proxy, the government. (despite what some people, and a lot of politicians, forget, that is what a democratic government is: the proxy of the citizens, and the equivalent of a condo association hiring a guy to mow the lawns)
Firefighting, for instance, is one of them. We've had plenty of experience with privately run firefighting services, back in the 18th and 19th century. We found out they didn't work. They only extinguished fires in property owned by their subscribers
Employees in general theoretically have the best interests of their employers at heart. In the case of a public service such as the NWS, those employers are us, the citizens. In the case of a private service, those employers are the corporate officers and stockholders. When it comes to things that people's lives, safety, and livelihoods depend on, I am very reluctant to trust that service solely to people whose concern is not for the public good, not for my safety, not for a level playing field for all businesses, but solely for how much money they can gain.
And remember: Accu-Weather and the others don't want the National Weather Service privatized or abolished. They would collapse overnight if it was, because they utterly depend on its data. They want distribution of that taxpayer-funded data to be limited solely to them. They're perfectly happy with the NWS the way it is, so long as they are the only ones who can benefit from it.
Re:In an obscure but related story.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Should we have to pay twice to get weather fore (Score:5, Interesting)
The National Weather Service [noaa.gov], a part of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), is funded by taxes. It's already been paid for. The need for accurate weather information is extremely important for the military. Because it's almost as important for civilian use, the information is made available to the public.
Pilots, farmers, businesses and municipalities need this weather information, and in the U.S., weather is almost an obsession (Weather Channel [weather.com], anyone?) There is no national or continental weather service in Europe; private pilots have to pay for information, usually in the form of two daily faxes. This means that European pilots have to know even more about weather than their American counterparts because they must be able to predict conditions, whereas U.S. pilots can get up-to-the-minute information [duats.com].
In a nutshell, the Private Weather Sector want to be a middleman, themselves continuing to get the information for free and then charging others for what they (the public) have already paid for.
- Pay government (taxes) for weather information.
- Only one private group has access to this information
- Pay private group to give you this information
Neat, huh?If you still don't see it, imagine "EduCorp". EduCorp cuts a deal with the local government to provide schooling for children. The locality stil pays for everything, but EduCorp acts as a middleman. Only EduCorp subscribers can send their kids to these public schools. You pay taxes for schools and then pay EuCorp for th right to send your kids there. All clear?
Re:Should we have to pay twice to get weather fore (Score:5, Funny)
Not only there is no weather service, there are in fact no weather at all - Europe hasn't evolved a climate yet, unlike the US... and of course there are no pilots or airplanes whatsoever...
HINT HINT: you are living in a psychiatric hospital
Re:Should we have to pay twice to get weather fore (Score:5, Informative)
What's this [met-office.gov.uk], then?
Re:Should we have to pay twice to get weather fore (Score:4, Informative)
This must definitely depend on which nation in Europe you talk about. In Denmark, DMI [www.dmi.dk] provides specialized weather reports and forecasts for aviation, shipping, and farming. DMI is a national institution and many of its services are free.
Re:Should we have to pay twice to get weather fore (Score:3, Informative)
I got some inside looks at the battle inside this "Market Division". Generally, scientists think that weather information is a vital resource that should be kept free, and they are fighting for that end inside the institute. But the market realities are that it might not be for very much longer, since the government is cutting back fun
Re:Should we have to pay twice to get weather fore (Score:2)
http://weather.gov/
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/
and
> weather
for local and region forecasts and severe weather predictions. It's all the same information that your local weather forecasters use anyway, and you get it up-to-the-minute. If you want to know why that 'W' sits in the corner of the screen during your favorite TV broadcast, just look it up when you want. The NWS has continually been upgrading their regional web pages, now often including storm reports,
Re:Should we have to pay twice to get weather fore (Score:2)
What a strange remark!
Just as an add on to the list others have started in this thread:
KNMI [www.knmi.nl] for The Netherlands or:
(for the linguistically impaired) [www.knmi.nl]
Such National and tax funded institutions don't have to stop commercial weather forecasters:
Meteoconsult [www.weer.nl]
Re:Excellent... (Score:2)
Those of us who are US taxpayers have already ante'd up for it. Either take our tax money and return a service or (preferably) stop robbing me every pay period than turning around and charging me again.
Re:Excellent... (Score:5, Interesting)
You're confusing the public and private sectors.
For things that we've been forced to pay for through taxation, the NWS in this example, should not be able to turn around and charge us again to access the data, other than whatever minimal distribution fee is applicable. We paid, at gunpoint IMHO, for the NWS to collect weather data. I don't have a problem if they want to charge a small printing fee (N cents / copy for example) to distribute it or the equivelent. It's when the data that I already bought is being sold back to me that I have issues.
When it comes to disposable intellectual property be it music, movies or weather reports, computers make it technologically possible to force people to "pay per use". It's like installing a vending machine for your product in everyone's home, worldwide. Since it's basically been proven that copy protection doesn't work they want to make it illegal for anything to be free
This is the private sector, if you don't like it than don't buy it. Nobody is putting a gun to your head and saying "Buy the new Robbie Williams CD or else". If enough people don't like it, the product will disappear (New Coke). OTOH, if "pay per use" takes off on a large scale and you don't like it, you're free to join us luddites on the front porch bitching about the good old days when you bought a CD once.
The key difference is voluntary funding, nobody can force you to buy a product on the free market while taxpayer funded projects are a different matter (the gun to your head).
Re:The Weather Channel Is A Menace (Score:3, Interesting)
If a tornado warning was issued for Fairfax County, the computer that generates the local forecast would h