Unless you’re a farmer who wouldn’t mind a three-day heads-up on that freak late spring Norther so’s you don’t lose your crop right off the bat.
Unfortunately, if you’ve been relying on the National Weather Service forecasters at weather.gov, you’ve been flat out of luck, as their site – one of the most heavily visited in the United States – has been shut down for at least the past two days. This happened at least once earlier in February, too.
I don’t know where the commercial weather services obtain their data, but I suspect most of them grab a feed from the NWS. A recent report in Congressional Quarterly blamed the site’s problems on recent budget cuts, and it sounds like the government funding situation will only get worse.
Personally, I think weather forecasting is an essential government service with the constant potential to save lives and billions of dollars in costs to business, especially the agriculture sector.
I’ve also felt for at least the past six months that the Houston office of the NWS must be suffering from an employee shortage. We here in the Fort Bend County outback used to receive customized and remarkably accurate forecasts, but more recently it appears that the entire Houston region (and it’s geographically huge) has been getting one generic forecast. In our case, on almost a nightly basis, the projected lows have been roughly 8 degrees below actual temperatures at the One Acre Ranch near downtown Richmond.
If we’re just going to get rough estimates, I’d rather have them too low than too sunny. But the accuracy’s been noticeably off. Maybe the IRS will include a yard thermometer with next year’s tax refunds.
