They're Going After The National Weather Service Next

It's important to note that, in the United States, the National Weather Service ALONE operates the system of rawinsondes without which weather forecasting by ANYBODY in the United States, public or private, becomes impossible. AccuWeather can't function without the National Weather Service. Where would they get their data? Also, the National Weather Service is THE agency by which American weather forecasters interact with their international counterparts, of which there are many on this crowded globe. What happens overseas affects us, and vice versa.

Privatizing the National Weather Service IS NOT POSSIBLE! Even making the attempt will be far more expensive for everyone than the cost of the current system. And the weather service has always been, and remains, and always will remain a critical component of military readiness! People forget so fast!

So why do conservatives even bring up the subject of privatizing the National Weather Service? Are the rich THAT desperate for more and more and yet more loot that they consider even irreplaceable governmental functions - that safeguard even their lousy hides - to be dispensable? Remember, a truly-privatized weather service would withhold information from the public and provide the best information only to the highest bidder, perhaps at the cost of your poor, misinformed life!

This is truly, truly pathetic! What a disgrace conservatives are to this country!:

Although it might sound outrageous, the truth is that the National Hurricane Center and its parent agency, the National Weather Service, are relics from America’s past that have actually outlived their usefulness.

The National Weather Service (NWS) was founded in 1870. Originally, the NWS was not a public information agency. It was a national security agency and placed under the Department of War. The Service’s national security function has long since disappeared, but as agencies often do, however, it stuck around and managed to increase its budget.

Today the NWS justifies itself on public interest grounds. It issues severe weather advisories and hijacks local radio and television stations to get the message out. It presumes that citizens do not pay attention to the weather and so it must force important, perhaps lifesaving, information upon them. A few seconds’ thought reveals how silly this is. The weather might be the subject people care most about on a daily basis. There is a very successful private TV channel dedicated to it, 24 hours a day, as well as any number of phone and PC apps. Americans need not be forced to turn over part of their earnings to support weather reporting.

The NWS claims that it supports industries like aviation and shipping, but if they provide a valuable contribution to business, it stands to reason business would willingly support their services. If that is the case, the Service is just corporate welfare. If they would not, it is just a waste.

As for hurricanes, the insurance industry has a compelling interest in understanding them. In a world without a National Weather Service, the insurance industry would probably have sponsored something very like the National Hurricane Center at one or more universities. Those replacements would also not be exploited for political purposes.

As it stands today, the public is forced to pay more than $1 billion per year for the NWS. With the federal deficit exceeding a trillion dollars, the NWS is easily overlooked, but it shouldn’t be. It may actually be dangerous.

Relying on inaccurate government reports can endanger lives. Last year the Service failed to predict major flooding in Nashville because it miscalculated the rate at which water was releasing from dams there. The NWS continued to rely on bad information, even after forecasters knew the data were inaccurate. The flooding resulted in 22 deaths.

Private weather services do exist, and unsurprisingly, they are better than the NWS. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, the National Weather Service was twelve hours behind AccuWeather in predicting that New Orleans would be affected. Unlike the NWS, AccuWeather provides precise hour-by-hour storm predictions, one of the reasons private industry supports them.