Over the last several years, the National Weather Service has suffered one failure after another, with websites collapsing, an outage in satellite data and a severe weather alert system crashing.
The service’s budget and technology issues have the potential to undermine the government’s ability to provide accurate meteorological information during severe weather events.
It’s a troubling situation that should be addressed.
Last month, for instance, a network outage cut off the flow of some satellite data to the National Weather Service just as a nor’easter lashed the East Coast.
Weather information, of course, is imperative in preparing for and responding to emergencies, but that’s far from the only use.
Farmers count on such information, as do those in maritime industries. And so do citizens as they go about their daily lives.
Kathryn Miles, author of “Superstorm: Nine Days Inside Hurricane Sandy,” argued in a New York Times that congressional allocations to the weather service “have all but flatlined.”
Miles wrote that the nation must “invest significantly more in the weather infrastructure, technology and the kind of communication redundancies that will keep all of us safe.”
For instance, in May 2013, just outside Chicago cut off six forecasting offices, one of which was attempting to issue severe thunderstorm and flash flood warnings. Personnel had to contact a backup office by phone and dictate the warning.
Recently, Louis Uccellini, director of the National Weather Service, saying system upgrades were scheduled that would shore up capacity.
We hope that happens. These examples and others show the fragile condition of the network and underscore the need to fortify this valuable service.
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