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I dont mean to shift this thread any....but I am passionate about my job as a meteorologist and I am a fed worker for the National Weather Service. I am an operational lead forecaster at an office in Grand Forks ND. Being operational, I work shift work, many weekends and holidays. Shift work is fine and that goes with any job where 24/7 coverage is needed.
There is talk about eseential and non-essential. I may regret to ask this on the POC forum, but I am wondering if you consider the National Weather Service organization as essential. The NWS organization includes the National Hurricane Center, the Storm Prediction Center, and the Weather Prediction Center along with local offices scattered across the nation. These local office (like mine) do forecasts, winter/severe/flood warning services, as well as fire weather, aviation forecasts, climate reports, and other info for a certain region that our office covers. If you would, how many mets should work each shift? What do you think we do? I understand 95 pct of folks only info about weather comes likely from local TV and the Weather Channel, which gives only a very very small percentage of what a meteorologist is. By the way, NWS doesnt have any broadcasting folks, nor do we have folks at the TWC or any other TV outlet.
To you, what would you think is a fair wage?
I love my job and I love talking about weather and what I do for any who would listen. But that is the problem, very few it seems on the POC really want to know about what I do or other agencies do. They are all lumped together under the fed umbrella. I would be happy to reply back with info for any that wants to DM me. I may not get there tonight, but I promise to respond.
I am not looking to argue over fed spending, I think we all agree it can and must be trimmed. But I also think the public needs to know how your money is spend and I would like to give this opportunity.
I think the NWS should be privatized. It should be funded by fees paid by those who use its services. Weather doesn't have much to do with governing in my opinion.
I think the NWS should be privatized. It should be funded by fees paid by those who use its services. Weather doesn't have much to do with governing in my opinion.
There has been many times brought up that the forecast be privatized. So only those who want to know the forecast will get it. I know in Canada to talk to any weather person at one of their offices you use a 1900 number. I worked in the private sector at Accu-Weather as well before the NWS. I think the privatization of weather forecasts is somewhat reasonable.
But the big ? and even the private outfits do not want, is the watch/warning/advisory program. How would that work? Only certain people would get notice of a tornado or hurricane or flash flood? This is where it gets very sticky. Who pays for the satellites up in space....repairs for doppler radars, etc. The FAA uses radar data, elecric companies use radar data, each state EOC uses radar data, so a charge should go to them to use of the data kind of like cell phone data plans? I am trying to get past the usual forecast part of the job and dig a bit deeper. What private company could poney up tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for equipment repair.
Thanks for your response, I have have read many of your posts on the Michigan/Detroit forum as I used to work at metro Airport.
I dont mean to shift this thread any....but I am passionate about my job as a meteorologist and I am a fed worker for the National Weather Service. I am an operational lead forecaster at an office in Grand Forks ND. Being operational, I work shift work, many weekends and holidays. Shift work is fine and that goes with any job where 24/7 coverage is needed.
There is talk about eseential and non-essential. I may regret to ask this on the POC forum, but I am wondering if you consider the National Weather Service organization as essential. The NWS organization includes the National Hurricane Center, the Storm Prediction Center, and the Weather Prediction Center along with local offices scattered across the nation. These local office (like mine) do forecasts, winter/severe/flood warning services, as well as fire weather, aviation forecasts, climate reports, and other info for a certain region that our office covers. If you would, how many mets should work each shift? What do you think we do? I understand 95 pct of folks only info about weather comes likely from local TV and the Weather Channel, which gives only a very very small percentage of what a meteorologist is. By the way, NWS doesnt have any broadcasting folks, nor do we have folks at the TWC or any other TV outlet.
To you, what would you think is a fair wage?
I love my job and I love talking about weather and what I do for any who would listen. But that is the problem, very few it seems on the POC really want to know about what I do or other agencies do. They are all lumped together under the fed umbrella. I would be happy to reply back with info for any that wants to DM me. I may not get there tonight, but I promise to respond.
I am not looking to argue over fed spending, I think we all agree it can and must be trimmed. But I also think the public needs to know how your money is spend and I would like to give this opportunity.
Dan
I don't need the government as a nanny/parent to tell me when danger is coming.
If someone is willing to pay you for your services, then you are valuable.
I don't need the government as a nanny/parent to tell me when danger is coming.
If someone is willing to pay you for your services, then you are valuable.
The thing is, you do. Do you think private weather forecasters would predict tornadoes in Kansas? Who would pay? Would they ask residents to voluntarily pay a fee? Or do you only get the alert if you subscribe to their service?
No, emergency forecasting is a public service and has to remain that way. You just didn't put enough thought into it to realize that, and instead went with a knee jerk "I DON'T NEED NO NANNY STATE" response.
I think the NWS should be privatized. It should be funded by fees paid by those who use its services. Weather doesn't have much to do with governing in my opinion.
The idea of a national weather service, originated from the US Signal Corps and the Dept of Army (I think) back in the days of railroad expansion. There needed to be a network of observations as the country and population expanded westward into the unknown for the safety of the workers building the railroads west through the plains. Also it became evident that storms in many cases for the east coast come from the south and west and to prevent at the time was great loss of life during major events, such as the Galveston hurricane, it as deemed that the government has a duty to protects its citizens from natural disasters. That is because these storms destroy much infrastructure that the city/state/federal government had to re-build after each event. A network of communication systems via teletype and phone was eventually set up to transmit observations from those observers at selected stations to the rest of the country.
Also, weather forecasts are used by the FAA and the airline industry for flight planning. What local offices produce and monitor is a TAF forecast which is for a specific airport. This is routinely updated and re-issued through the day and valid for 24 hours. The airline industry uses these for planning purposes, for fuel loading. How much money would the airlines pay to have a company do this? Right now the FAA does pay a fee to the NWS for all aviation forecasts, but in a more privatized world one airline might get a forecast from x company and another from y company. What if they are different? One company's forecaster believe low clouds and fog will form late at night and early morning causing IFR conditions, the other company doesnt. Which would you use, knowing that putting extra fuel on the plane for IFR conditions is very very expensive. Having one centralized voice helps them with decision making, as they only have to tele-conference with one agency in regards to flight and air traffic planning.
I am the aviation focal point at my office and just trying to tell the FAA/NWS connection to all this. It has nothing to do with today will be sunny and 74.
Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
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Quote:
Originally Posted by winkosmosis
The thing is, you do. Do you think private weather forecasters would predict tornadoes in Kansas? Who would pay? Would they ask residents to voluntarily pay a fee? Or do you only get the alert if you subscribe to their service?
No, emergency forecasting is a public service and has to remain that way. You just didn't put enough thought into it to realize that, and instead went with a knee jerk "I DON'T NEED NO NANNY STATE" response.
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