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Well, I am gonna put this one in the “News I Didn’t Wanna See” column today. This is infuriating on so many levels that it is crazy. Before I elaborate on just why, though, let me just lay out the facts for you.
Earlier today, the Capital Weather Gang (CWG) published a piece about the Senate proposing a bill to consolidate the NWS’ 122 offices into 6 central regional offices. This would begin taking place immediately if the bill was passed, and the NWS would have to reform the system within one year of the bill passing. This is referred to as The National Weather Service Improvement Act, and if passed, would have major impacts on meteorology across the nation.
To keep this brief (I have a lot of commentary on this), here are the main points for this legislation passing:
- Increased investment into decision support
- Better quality of weather forecasts
- More room to spend within the budget
- Avoidance of offices becoming overwhelmed during severe weather outbreaks
Those are the major “positives” brought up within the article by CWG. For a more in depth look at this idea, and what others are saying, you can read the full piece here.
I am here, however, to state that this idea is not only questionable, but it is dangerous. I think that this idea is actually very dangerous. There are so many things flawed with this plan that it is almost appalling. It is so frustrating. First of all, lets take a look at what the current NWS system looks like:
There are 122 NWS offices nationwide, and each of them house some of the best meteorologists in the world. These mets have the highest training, education and experience, and this is why they are employed. They know the quirks of the region, and know what to expect in tough forecasting situations. These also provide a large pool of potential jobs for upcoming meteorologists. Though it is very difficult to get into the NWS system (I know a met who essentially volunteered for several year before being hired at an office), the amount of potential jobs out there is fairly large.
However, the government now wants to split all of this, and co-located forecasting duties for 6 regions to one city within that region. ONE city. Assuming the government were to abide by where the regional offices are now, here is about what the system would look like:
That is a substantial difference in coverage ability and forecasting accuracy. How realistic is it to expect a meteorologist working in Kansas City to know every single meteorological and climatological detail that goes into forecasting for Western Utah? This is one of the huge pluses about the NWS system. With 122 offices, the amount of detail that can go into forecasting is fairly substantial.
You have mets in house that know what happened with the last system like the one they’re forecasting, and that helps them forecast it. Its almost like asking a football coach to coach basketball. The level of detail is going to be limited to the few real plays they have seen, or how much 2k they have played. This significantly lessens the coaches ability to adequately coach the team, and thus, the outcome for the team is likely to be bad.
Similarly, you cannot expect meteorologists to produce good and accurate forecasts for cities in over 3 states. I am sorry to say that. It just isn’t realistic. You can tell me how the Weather Channel can do it all day. But its much different…
See, what would end up happening is that forecasters would be forced to make forecasts for the higher population cities in the region, and adjust numbers in respect to that. They wouldn’t have the time or man power to go through the tedious and time consuming forecasting process that they do now.
Delving into that a little bit, the forecasting process for a meteorologist in the NWS is incredibly time consuming. You have to pour over at least two model runs, if not more, to get a grasp on the trends that models are showing, figure out what model has been verifying best, etc. Then, they use their software to create the forecast, which isn’t as simple as it might seem.
From watching them make some forecasts, it looks like it takes practice to get used to. Then, there is a forecast discussion detailing what went into the forecast and what the forecaster is expecting to happen. What the bill is proposing to do would not only limit the capability of the forecasters that lucked out and got the jobs at the 6 centers, but it would degrade the quality of forecasts. This would make it much harder to attain accurate forecasts, and would put lives in danger instead of helping them.
In the article, we are told that the NWS would likely keep all 122 offices for warning coordination and decision support across the region. Its also mentioned that no jobs would be lost or gained. All of this adds up to…little sense.
This proposition is supposed to carve out more room to move within the budget, but the simple fact is that it wouldn’t. If you are going to run 122 offices, plus invest more into the regional offices, you aren’t exactly looking at a cost efficient operation. I have spoken on this before, and I will say it again: the only way to make movement within the world of computational meteorology, increase forecasting capability, increase accuracy, etc. is to invest more into it. You cannot expect something to improve without doing anything about it.
If they aren’t going to cut jobs, then they are essentially going to be allocating resources within the country, at best. Then you factor in moving costs, the likelihood that some mets ask for cost of living expenses and other expenses, and you likely have dished out more money than you needed. If more decision support is necessary, then hire people that are qualified to do that, and keep one or two at each office.
If more computer power is needed, then dish out the money to accomplish that. Nothing is free in this world, and the meteorological world is no different. Yet, we try to squeeze more and more out of the little that is given.
The point that was offered probably more than any other was the idea that regionalizing the NWS would keep local offices from becoming overwhelmed during severe weather events. This is probably the biggest head scratcher that I have seen about the reasoning behind this. It just doesn’t make any logical sense to me.
NWS offices bring in extra staffing, have people stay overtime and allocate their meteorologists to respective stations to stay on top of events such as these. I mean, the Meteorologist In Charge at the National Weather Service in Louisville once worked 9 consecutive days during an active period in 2012. Its not like local offices are keeping 3 people on staff during severe weather outbreaks.
These outbreaks are well thought out and planned ahead of time, as they are predictable. Even so, if there is concern about offices getting overwhelmed, then allow them to hire more staff. Or, help them implement and practice scenarios once every month or two, that way they have practice.
Additionally, lead-time on warnings has only increased in recent years, and this seems to support the idea that offices are just fine during outbreaks. I mean, during the April 27th, 2011 tornado outbreak, lead times were in excess of 20 minutes. Forecasters becoming overwhelmed was not the reason that so many people died that day. They knew that day was coming, and people just didn’t heed the warnings. And if this problem is so significant that the government seemingly wants to restructure the entire system to accommodate for it, then they shouldn’t enact this plan.
This plan would only put more stress on the forecasters themselves as they would have to forecast details days in advance, coordinate with the warning coordinators at the offices, and hope that it goes okay. They could split the SPC into three major branches, hire more meteorologists to help with that, and use those offices to help with severe weather situations.
In my honest opinion, I think the idea that splitting 122 NWS offices into 6 regional branches across the country is dangerous, not just borderline dangerous. I feel like we would see significant difficulties in communication and pretty large decreases in forecasting accuracy. While the main goal is to save more lives with this plan, the only scenario I see this ending in is endangering more lives.