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Post by Cornflake on Feb 20, 2023 19:53:15 GMT -5
"Our AccuWeather forecast for the rest of the week...."
I generally don't join in boycotts. After reading about AccuWeather's role in the Trump Administration, though, it's my last choice for weather information.
In a nutshell, one of their very highest-ups took a position in which he had supervisory power over NOAA aka The National Weather Service. It's a competitor of AccuWeather. All the private weather services got their start by taking for free the information NOAA had gathered at public expense over many years, which can't be copyrighted. The private services now sell information you can get from NOAA for free. Tornado warnings? You get them free from NOAA because you're an American. You get them from the AccuWeather only if you subscribe to get them for a fee. NOAA was almost gutted under the Trump administration.
Apparently what the AccuWeather guy did in accepting a position that involved supervising a competitor was not a violation of any applicable ethics laws. It still offends me ethically. Your mileage may vary.
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Feb 20, 2023 20:19:10 GMT -5
My mileage does not vary.
Mike
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Feb 20, 2023 21:13:44 GMT -5
I was not aware of what you describe when I started using AccuWeather. Does sound awful. Here's the NOAA forecast for my area.
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Post by aquaduct on Feb 20, 2023 21:47:37 GMT -5
Can't really see what the big deal is. I've had Accuweather on my phone for free for years. It's a good quick reference that let's me know how to dress in the morning before heading out to work. And tornado warnings interupt everything around here.
If NOAA really is behind it, it's good to see something useful in government that others can actually use.
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Post by Cornflake on Feb 20, 2023 21:59:59 GMT -5
I couldn't remember the author of the title of the book when I started this thread but here's the Wikipedia entry:
"Fifth Risk is a 2018 non-fiction book by Michael Lewis that examines the transition and political appointments of the Donald Trump presidency, especially with respect to three government agencies: the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Commerce."
A friend who was a Republican until a couple of elections back recommended the book to me. He and I later agreed that the book was worth reading if only because of its discussions of what the feds do that we take for granted. I remember being surprised that one of the Department of Energy's main tasks is taking care of the country's nuclear arsenal and what that entails. In short, it's still worth reading.
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Post by Cornflake on Feb 20, 2023 22:04:29 GMT -5
Rob, I remember reading that AccuWeather now has a very slightly higher percentage of accurate forecasts than the Weather Service does, but both are very good. AccuWeather almost certainly pays better.
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Post by Village Idiot on Feb 20, 2023 22:09:57 GMT -5
I've always been a fan of NOAA. I like the national radar as opposed to just local to Iowa, and the national drought map. After reading your thoughts, Don, I agree.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 19,916
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Post by Dub on Feb 20, 2023 23:23:04 GMT -5
For several years the most accurate weather app was Dark Sky. It was head and shoulders above the rest. Then Apple bought it and pulled it from the Google store. It was still great but only on Apple. Now Apple has “incorporated the technology into Apple Weather” and shut down Dark Sky. Unfortunately, the Apple Weather app isn’t nearly as good as Dark Sky was.
Weather Underground is very accurate and detailed. I use it quite a lot. The other weather app I really like for its accuracy and detail is MyRadar Pro. Both of these apps also incorporate NOAA warnings.
Weather Underground (I like the title) started out selling (I think) online weather stations to interested persons and collected very precise local data which it used to improve upon NOAA data for more precise very local forecasts. They were finally acquired by IBM and it’s still a very good, very accurate app. I think there may still be an “underground” version that works with privately-owned weather stations.
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 21, 2023 8:10:05 GMT -5
We use the weather channel app. … and the weather stone .
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Post by Marty on Feb 21, 2023 9:03:51 GMT -5
We use the weather channel app. … and the weather stone . I want one of those.
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Post by Marshall on Feb 21, 2023 9:21:15 GMT -5
Accuweather will sell you one for $299.99 plus shipping and handling.
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Post by Cornflake on Feb 21, 2023 11:02:59 GMT -5
The Weather Service needs to make its website easier to use. It knows that. Much of its information is hidden from plain view. To give only one example, under "Additional Forecasts and Discussions" is a link called "Forecast Discussion." That'll take you to a page that discusses what kinds of fronts will be coming through when and, in our area, what the likelihood is of getting significant precipitation with the front. They will also tell you how much confidence they have in the forecast. The discussion uses a fair amount of jargon but there are links that define the terms. For example, PoPs means probability of precipitation, which you figure out pretty quickly.
Similarly, "Hourly Weather Forecast" in the same box will break the forecast down into hours for the next few days. Assume I'm planning to go to the Desert Botanical Garden to take photos Sunday morning at 7:00. The hourly weather forecast will give me a good idea of what the temperature will be, whether there will be clouds and the like. That will often affect the gear I take along and sometimes whether I go at all.
I can set the map on the first page to give me the closest prediction to my house. What I'll actually get is a prediction based on an algorithm which takes the airport temperature and adjusts it based on historical data for a section of north Phoenix. It usually runs several degrees too high for our house.
You get the point. I've never heard of anything another weather app will do that the NOAA site won't do, although there's often a little learning involved.
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Post by epaul on Feb 21, 2023 21:44:12 GMT -5
[Post contains several mistakes. I made a mishmash of an NPR story. Disregard.]
The founder of Accuweather, Joel Myers is by testimony of those who worked with him an unscrupulous self promoter...
Myers was part of a team of meteorologists Eisenhower assembled to prepare weather forecasts for various D-Day invasion dates. After the war, Myers went on a self-promotion tour claiming that he was the head meteorologist and it was his work that saved the day. The others involved called bullcrap (and apparently his forecast was one of the poorer ones). But, Myers was loud and aggressive while the others were slow to respond or care.
But, Myers was also by dint of his achievement, in a word, perspicacious. He saw a need, a market and created a product for it. And the need he saw was a need, as the many subscribers of his service understand and best define it. That is, as they say, a fact.
(I subscribed to Accuweather in my farming days, and it was best weather deal going. And not by my account alone, but by the great numbers of businesses with weather concerns that made their informed choices to subscribe to Accuweather. I still rely on the free service.)
The issue of concern isn't that Myers was/is an unscrupulous self-promoter. Many who have created useful products, businesses, ideas, systems (and great works or art) have been and are. Besides, he's 81 and the company has been run by others for some time now. He is just a cranky figurehead.
And the issue of concern isn't that many private weather businesses use weather service data to craft individualized forecasts tailored to their willing clients' perceived needs. That is the function of the NOAA, to gather and assemble information for the public good.
No, the issue is that ignorant damn fools like Trump and other "the government is the problem" types have been actively trying to hamstring NOAA. Weather forecasts, the best we can come up with, are crucial to many in business, industry, and public service.
For example (one of a thousand), the managers of the grid that bring power to your home and our nation's businesses now rely not only a daily forecast but on updates that arrive real time, not once a minute, real time, continuous. And it matters, critically, as they are now constantly assigning, allocating, re-allocating, and juggling energy sources and destinations based on these weather forecasts. Any thought or belief to the contrary of this critical need is founded on ignorance.
Examples abound to the usefulness and need for better and better weather forecasts, and NOAA and the resources of the Federal Government are critical to this end. But, I would not nail private weather forecasting services to the cross of Trump's profound stupidity.
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Feb 22, 2023 0:15:18 GMT -5
The founder of Accuweather, Joel Myers is by testimony of those who worked with him an unscrupulous self promoter... Myers was part of a team of meteorologists Eisenhower assembled to prepare weather forecasts for various D-Day invasion dates. After the war, Myers went on a self-promotion tour claiming that he was the head meteorologist and it was his work that saved the day. The others involved called bullcrap (and apparently his forecast was one of the poorer ones). But, Myers was loud and aggressive while the others were slow to respond or care. But, Myers was also by dint of his achievement, in a word, perspicacious. He saw a need, a market and created a product for it. And the need he saw was a need, as the many subscribers of his service understand and best define it. That is, as they say, a fact. (I subscribed to Accuweather in my farming days, and it was best weather deal going. And not by my account alone, but by the great numbers of businesses with weather concerns that made their informed choices to subscribe to Accuweather. I still rely on the free service.) The issue of concern isn't that Myers was/is an unscrupulous self-promoter. Many who have created useful products, businesses, ideas, systems (and great works or art) have been and are. Besides, he's 81 and the company has been run by others for some time now. He is just a cranky figurehead. And the issue of concern isn't that many private weather businesses use weather service data to craft individualized forecasts tailored to their willing clients' perceived needs. That is the function of the NOAA, to gather and assemble information for the public good. No, the issue is that ignorant damn fools like Trump and other "the government is the problem" types have been actively trying to hamstring NOAA. Weather forecasts, the best we can come up with, are crucial to many in business, industry, and public service. For example (one of a thousand), the managers of the grid that bring power to your home and our nation's businesses now rely not only a daily forecast but on updates that arrive real time, not once a minute, real time, continuous. And it matters, critically, as they are now constantly assigning, allocating, re-allocating, and juggling energy sources and destinations based on these weather forecasts. Any thought or belief to the contrary of this critical need is founded on ignorance. Examples abound to the usefulness and need for better and better weather forecasts, and NOAA and the resources of the Federal Government are critical to this end. But, I would not nail private weather forecasting services to the cross of Trump's profound stupidity. Joel Myers was born in 1939. I am having trouble believing that Eisenhower tapped a 5-year old for his D-Day meteorological team.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
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Post by Dub on Feb 22, 2023 0:53:17 GMT -5
[ Joel Myers was born in 1939. I am having trouble believing that Eisenhower tapped a 5-year old for his D-Day meteorological team. Yeah, I noticed that too. If he was 81 now, he couldn’t have done that. I’m guessing he’s more like 101.
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Feb 22, 2023 1:05:57 GMT -5
[ Joel Myers was born in 1939. I am having trouble believing that Eisenhower tapped a 5-year old for his D-Day meteorological team. Yeah, I noticed that too. If he was 81 now, he couldn’t have done that. I’m guessing he’s more like 101. No, was born in 1939, now 83. When Paul said he was 81, I thought about my age of almost 76 and something didn't compute, so I Googled him.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 19,916
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Post by Dub on Feb 22, 2023 1:21:20 GMT -5
Yeah, I noticed that too. If he was 81 now, he couldn’t have done that. I’m guessing he’s more like 101. No, was born in 1939, now 83. When Paul said he was 81, I thought about my age of almost 76 and something didn't compute, so I Googled him. Then the D-day story is just a Santosism.
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Post by epaul on Feb 22, 2023 1:34:29 GMT -5
I got an NPR story bollocksed up. And I can't find it to fix things. The story discussed the D-Day weather forecaster who (trying to reassemble broken pieces here) went on to develop a private weather forecasting business to compete with the National Weather Service. The story went on to discuss the founder of Accuweather, its success, and the growth of private weather forecasting companies, their reliance on free National Weather Service data, the increasing use of some of their own weather collecting data (drones, balloons), and some issues Don raised.
There was something in the middle I missed, the connection/transition from D-Day guy to the Accuweather guy.
So... nevermind.
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Post by howard lee on Feb 22, 2023 9:45:54 GMT -5
Noah knew it was going to rain. I'm just sayin'.
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Post by Village Idiot on Feb 22, 2023 19:46:28 GMT -5
For road conditions I rely on 511ia.org. I assume there's a similar site for every US state.
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