Weather Service Becoming More Tech Friendly 182
awgy writes "The National Weather Service recently began offering XML/RSS feeds of their
alerts,
observations, and
forecasts. Now the Tulsa, OK
Forecast Office is experimenting with
offering forecast files
for Google Earth. It looks like the
National Weather Service is quickly becoming one of the most geek-friendly
government agencies."
more feed to manage.. oh well (Score:1, Interesting)
Not to mention... (Score:1, Interesting)
NWS is nothing but geeks (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I wonder if their info is superior to AccuWeath (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I wonder if their info is superior to AccuWeath (Score:2, Interesting)
It is probably the only US government agency that I would ever consider working for.
NOAA is also on their desktop geek friendly (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I wonder if their info is superior to AccuWeath (Score:3, Interesting)
You see, it took priorty and stopped me from navigating web pages, etc. So I uninstalled it.
Tell Santorum what you think about S.786 (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm opposed to your introduction of S.786, the "National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005." Why don't you just label it the "AccuWeather Protection Act of 2005" and get it over with?
The National Weather Service provides accurate, up to date gathering of data and presents forecasts of weather at taxpayers' expense. To prohibit them from disseminating this through public access, and constrain them to "data portals designed for volume access by commercial providers" (Section 2(c)(2)) does a grave disservice to the taxpayers of Pennsylvania and the country in general. What you have done is nothing less than ensure that commercial weather reporting agencies have a taxpayer-funded data source that taxpayers are prohibited from enjoying.
Rest assured I will be monitoring the progress of this bill through the Senate and the House.
Geek Frinedly? (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a significant number of Mets that also sling a little code on their off-hours. Naturally, they like to code new weather data manipulation and presentation applications.
They are also Open-Source friendly. The computer we use down there runs Fedora Core 3 and Firefox (at my insistence, and it was fine with them). Their AWIPS workstations run Red Hat Linux and feature 3 flat-panel montors. They are the coolest things, these AWIPS workstations. (If memory serves, the acronym means "Advanced Weather Information Presentation System").
But there are two truly remarkable things about the people that work there that I have noticed. First, they are about the smartest group of people that I have ever worked with.
Second, they truly have a dedication to protect and serve the public. That might sound corny to some, but not to me. They take pride in trying to warn the public of impending severe weather, and are genuinely concerned about the public's safety.
And while they cannot publicly comment on issues such as the misguided Senator Santorum's attempt to make them work for large corporations, I can almost guarantee that they aren't happy about it (based on a few private conversations I've had with some of the staff).
I have a deep respect for these people and do hope that Santorum's attempt to screw the public does not pass.
Ahh, monopolies... (Score:2, Interesting)
Corporate competition is a good thing. Restricting data to just corporations is what is not a good thing. Accuweather usually nails forecasts pretty well, and presents it better than the National Weather Service does. The Weather Channel happens to have talking heads on TV, even though their forecasts aren't always right. It's the site to go to for mom and dad. It took me a few months to get around the NWS site, as good as it is.
I'm getting the impression that the higher-modded posts want companies like Accuweather to just "go away". That would be a bad thing. I can't help but think the competition has helped our forecasts to this very day.
Re:Impressive (Score:3, Interesting)