Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Sequester Could Ultimately Affect Severe-Weather Forecasting
://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/sequester-could-ultimately-affect-severe-weather-forecasting/2013/03/05/b41555ee-850b-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394_story.html
Cost-cutting measures that were part of the recently passed sequester will negatively affect weather forecasting.There will be less weather satellites in the atmosphere, a less effective radio network, and less hours for reconnaissance aircraft that track hurricanes. Inaccurate forecasting can result in a major loss of property and perhaps even the lives of the victims of natural disasters. The Commerce Department is willing to give the NWS some flexibility in managing its budget. Hopefully a compromise is struck, but compromise is a dirty word in today's Washington. I think that the sequester cuts funds from departments that it has no business cutting, like from the NWS, and organization. However, the irony is that the sequester was supposed to drive Congress into action, yet the measure was passed and inaction remains.
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I really see no problem with this. The weather forecasts are usually off or wrong. One day they will say it will rain an it will be sunny. I remember when we had a "hurricane warning" (the hurricane was planned to hit us), and it barely rained...I see this as a good opportunity for the forecast group to work harder and faster in order to detect hurricanes, tornados, etc. It also now gives them an opportunity to work with other forecasters to get even more accurate readings. I see how it can be a problem, but I feel the pros weigh out the cons.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with John. Aubrey, so what if the weather is wrong sometimes, they are predicting the future. Its harder than it looks. And they are just going to get more wrong if they don't have the money to invest in smarter technologies that improve the accuracy of their predictions. And this is not really even about the daily weather. This is about cutting resources that will be necessary during a natural disasters. The NWS along with many other government agencies and services should not have to suffer because Congress can't gets it act together.
ReplyDeleteMost of the time when natural disasters take a heavy toll it's because people don't listen to the forecasts rather than the forecasts being wrong. Meteorologists always predict the more severe path that storms can take to try to warn people and make then prepare for the worst. They cannot predict the weather completely accurately 100% of the time because there is an element of randomness in the paths of fronts and systems, so as long as we have a baseline of technology we should be able to make good predictions. That being said, cutting the NWS could limit the amount of information going into making predictions which seems like it could lead to a bit more uncertainty in the weather.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't seem like such a huge problem on the surface. When you first look you just think about the days the weather man tells you it's going to rain and it turns out being sunny, so you wore your rainboots on the wrong day, but you move on. (or is that just me? probably just me) however, it is a huge problem when you think about the potentially incorrectly forecasted natural disasters. People don't listen to begin with, so if they're even less accurate thousands more could die if god forbid something horrible happened.
ReplyDeleteWell most problems tend to involve stubborn people who refuse to move so I disagree with you Sebastian. Also if these natural disasters are going to be as dreadful as you guys seem to male them out to be, I am sure they will still find a way to get their job done. As for any other weather, I already distrust meteorologists enough as it is, so I don't care if they lose funding. It's a waste in my opinion and if it is that difficult, you shouldn't waste money on it in the first place. Give me the temperature, I can probably figure out the rest...
ReplyDeleteRegardless of if the weather forecasts can be faulty at times, cutting significant funds from weather forecasting can, as Nora stated, can be dangerous in cases of natural disasters. Cutting program funding is needed, but cutting funding for weather forecasting wouldn't be on the top of my list of programs to receive cuts.
ReplyDeleteIt will be scary to see what happens as future storms cause havoc on the country, but at the same time we obviously are in need of making cuts and I think that this is one of the safer things to cut the budget on. As much I don't want to see this happening, I think I would rather see budget cuts here than in things that are more likely to compromise the safety of Americans. Hopefully the consequences of these cuts will not be a regret.
ReplyDeleteIt's strange to think that the sequester would cause our weather technology to take a few steps back rather than the normal progress and improvements that comes with time. This cut would certainly be terrifying in the case of a natural disaster, yet I would imagine that we would still have some sort of knowledge of when a natural disaster would occur. Also, I'd hope that other countries who would still have these technologies would warn us of some sort if there were to be that danger.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, this is not an big issue. Half the time the weather forecast is not even right. I could see how this might be a problem but its not a big deal. I mean if something bad or dangerous is about to happens, I would think that we might at least get a warning from other countries.
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