Weather Channel Rant

[USAF Pilot 07]

I like NOAA the best, ad free and seems to be the most accurate.

I was a meteorology major (yes, say what you want, but I'm not a geek! and I probably wouldn't have done it again), and all I really look at is NOAA. Rarely does a government agency have the upper hand over a private company, but in this case it does.

It's because all of NOAA's forecasters are actual meteorologists - not TV personalities - and they aren't trying to turn a profit. The National Weather Service is also the only organization that can put up weather watches, warnings and advisories.

Forecasting has taken a backseat at the weather channel to all of it's new age reality programming. Fortunately they still have guys around like Paul Kocin and Greg Forbes who only see about 2 minutes of air-time every hour on during significant weather events.

If you really want to get a sense for what is going on and what the NWS forecasters are predicting, go to http://www.nws.noaa.gov, put in your zip code, and scroll down to the bottom right of the page where you'll see a link for "Forecast Discussion". It's a little more technical and some of the stuff may be hard to understand but it really gives you an insight on what the forecaster for your local area is looking at and thinking. Also most NWS forecasters are locally based, so they are more familiar with the area than someone sitting in a windowless room in Atlanta is.

[cancidas]

http://www.aviationweather.gov