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Where does tax money come from? The private sector.
All government does is take their cut and redistribute it to whatever group they want. The money still comes form the private sector.
So it is perfectly sensebile to say farm subsidies come from the private sector. It is only distributed by government. Government is a middle man, and an expensive one.
The money doesn't come from government.
Unless they pull it out of their ass and print it.
Go to your county government and tell them you need a Doppler radar system because you want to live in butt-**** nowhere.
Do you like to eat? My family and neighbors grow your food. That's what happens out in what you so "tastefully" called but-**** nowhere--most of the land is used for agriculture instead of houses. Its hard to believe that anyone can be this stupid.
The funny part--no one, and I mean no one except loonies on this board and nut cases like Rick Santorum (who was quickly shot down by other R's), are calling to privatize the nws, because it's an idiotic idea, and everyone with any sense knows that.
Because Europe has more severe weather than us...
Here we get hurricanes. With millions of Americans living along the coast, and many local governments depending on the NHC to save lives...
Where did you come up with that? Does Europe have major blizzards, routine tornadoes, etc.? No.
Got it! Now it makes sense. And you're right--Europe has blizzards, but since they don't have the big open areas we do, they don't have the white outs that shut down hundreds of miles of interstate at a time like we do out in the plains.
When did broadband internet become a necessary public service? For that matter, when did internet become a necessity? While I'm actually a proponent of having the weather service run at a federal or at least a state level, using the internet - which is a luxury and not a necessity - to further your argument doesn't work.
Not in today's society. The internet is becoming more and more integral to how we conduct our lives and commerce is conducted in the modern world. For most of the folks on this forum, the internet is a place to putz around and ***** about the big, evil government and welfare queens, so of course in that capacity, yes, the internet is not a necessity but a luxury. Think macro level, not micro.
Got it! Now it makes sense. And you're right--Europe has blizzards, but since they don't have the big open areas we do, they don't have the white outs that shut down hundreds of miles of interstate at a time like we do out in the plains.
Forecasting itself yes can and is being done by the private sector. If that is all the NWS does then no problem.....
But that is only one very very small piece of the puzzle. Without local offices, who would be the expert to go to county/cities to give spotter talks to train weather spotters on what to look for and ways they can protect their community (spotters play a pivotal role in that)....without a government agency who would maintain satellite systems.....weather observing systems...collect data for the national climate program.....get the mega money to run and buy super computers which run model data that is available. Are you going to have an Accu-Weather computer model, a Weather Channel satellite, all paid by them with the same capabilities and downscaling as NWS models and satellites? No.
NWS provides forecasts for local fish and wildlife and dept of natural resources and US forest services during burns....data is provided by on the field IMETS local to the area and who know the area specifically. During flood events up here in the Red River valley and elsewhere, local governments depend greatly on free advice and hands on expertise from local NWS meteorologists to speak to how a river forecast affects their town.
Yes the general forecast of high of 70 and low of 50 and chance of rain 30 percent can easily be done by someone 1000 miles away....but the local expertise in very specific situations noted above cannot be done.
Private companies play a huge role in todays weather forecasting world and they provide specific services to state highway DOT for road temperature forecasts and snow removal, specific forecasts for school districts...but they pay for it. I worked in private weather companies starting out from college and learned a whole lot. But the focus was on paying customers and big cities. Should rural North Dakotans pay for a service to get weather forecasts...a private company isnt going to give as much thought for a forecast for a tiny community or school district in rural North Dakota like a local office does.
Ask some of the folks in Environment Canada how the shredding of Environment Canada in the 1990s and 2000s worked out. Right now for the general public to talk to any person at one of the their offices they use a 1-900 number and pay for it. Here in the U.S. any local person can call up the local NWS office for free to obtain info they want for their trip, their party, their camping trip, whatever.
Dont get me started on warnings.....as someone in a far off place is going to monitor local radars and talk to the spotters and public and get all that information and send out the info. Even private companies such as Accu-Weather know that warning services must be a government function, for the protection of life and property and regulation of commerce.
The training you mentioned can come from people who are far more experienced at advanced storm spotter training, like the group I am associated with, one that comes with high recommendations from the National Weather Service for its advanced spotter training. We do it better. We do it far more often, and year round. We do it much more thoroughly... and we never let someone go out alone until they have completed our basic training which is much, MUCH more advanced than that joke of a storm spotter training the National Weather Service puts on each year.
As far as having a toll free number to ask for weather related information... Turn on the Weather Channel or get on the internet & do a little homework. Tax dollars should not be spent just because people are lazy and/or stupid.
Finally, what we do does not require a DIME of public funding. We pay for our fuel. We pay for our own communications, mainly amateur radio, but now also cell phones. We had radar images from local tv stations in our vehicles using amateur video with modems LONG before everyone had smart phones with data access. We pay for our vehicles. We all either have full coverage or beaters that we drive for storm spotting or chasing. We coordinated with multiple County EOC centers long before the federal government stepped in & started mandating this coordination. As a matter of fact, those mandates almost interfere with what WE are capable of doing that State, County and local governments could not do until they dumped MASSIVE amounts of wasted $'s into their EOC and coordination budgets, duplicating what we already provided for them for free.
Any day, I'd be more than willing put our weakest spotter up against any LEO that attended 5 of the NWS's spotter training classes a year for 20 years as a basis for their training. Heck, I'd even go as far as to say our average spotter can do, and typically does a better job of severe storm spotting in the field than the majority of the folks at the National Weather Service. We've worked side by side with them for so long, we know who on their team has taken OUR training and who is required to go with one of our group if they are to be on any of our networks or repeaters during an event.
We track. We strategically position. We triangulate. We chart (plot on a map). We practice on the fly distance estimation. We practice multiple station distance estimation from a fixed base. We measure wind, rain, hail, speed of the storm, cloud to ground lightning, etc.... and we do all of this with current gazetteers or high resolution topographical maps from 4 states, a compass, 2 radios (one is a backup) and a few minor handheld devices that WE each paid for.
Tell me something... If the National Weather Service was so good at it, why do they rely on groups like ours for our information? Couldn't they just throw some more money at it then provide all the information anyone could ever need? The fact is, the National Weather Service RELIES on groups like the one I am a part of because without us, their information would be spotty at best.
Tell me something... If the National Weather Service was so good at it, why do they rely on groups like ours for our information? Couldn't they just throw some more money at it then provide all the information anyone could ever need? The fact is, the National Weather Service RELIES on groups like the one I am a part of because without us, their information would be spotty at best.
Because weather is a MONITORING service. And some things like touching down funnel clouds, hail, strong gusts needs to be confirmed by people (though radar is getting better and better). That's right, people need to be on the look out, so they can use their information to warn people that aren't on the look out.
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Its hard to believe that anyone can be this stupid.
And you're right--Europe has blizzards, but since they don't have the big open areas we do, they don't have the white outs that shut down hundreds of miles of interstate at a time like we do out in the plains.
