Actually, The NWS is quite a bit more metric than their public products
would seem to indicate. The NWS, some years ago, was told that it had to
make its products commercially available as a means of defraying costs.
So they have contracts with various companies to provide them with
meteorological data. They also provide much the same product to the
public for free, but often delayed (perhaps 15 to 20 minutes) to give
their paying customers a head start. Of course, forecasts that deal with
matters of safety are immediately released to the public and are not
delayed.
Hence, being a customer-oriented service, the NWS puts a non-metric face
on much of their data to appeal to the greater public. In the U.S., this
public is used to non-metric units. But behind the scenes, the NWS is
working with data that is collected, for the most part, in metric units
and most of that is SI.
A couple of years ago, NOAA and NWS headquarters required all local NWS
stations to adopt the same web page format. The thought here was that
whether you went to one site's page or another (say, for trip planning
purposes) you as the user should expect to find the same type of
information in the same spot on the page set.
Thus it would be most effective now, I think, to appeal to the NWS at
the Headquarters level. Here are two links that might prove useful:
questions and comments:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/feedback.shtml#feedback
webpage formats and information:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
A request to have them provide only metric information at this time
would probably not get far. A request to provide metric information
alongside non-metric information might stand a decent chance. One can
always pass comments on to local Forecast Service Offices, too.
Simultaneous and congruent appeals to local and to headquarters offices
will have a synergistic effect.
I think that reasonable grounds for appeal for at least parallel metric
information might include:
- seamless comparison with Mexican, Canadian, and other travel
destinations,
- products more palatable to people from outside the U.S., thus
helping tourism and trade,
- the educational value it would provide in acclimating the public to
SI units used in meteorology,
- the Omnibus Act amendment and Executive Order requiring federal
metrication, and
- your personal desires.
If the USMA members and list users (would that all the latter were
members!) want to do something proactive in lieu of tracking the value
of the euro or arguing about spelling of the meter, then this might be a
nice place to do something effective and something that would help
metricate the U.S.
Yes, I periodically do my part in trying to get NWS products to include
metric information.
Jim
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> I notice that the National Weather Service is mostly in Fahrenheit.
> Given that it is a Federal agency, do you think that it could be
> persuaded to do more in Celsius?
>
> http://www.nws.noaa.gov/
>
> --
> Terry Simpson
> Human Factors Consultant
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> www.connected-systems.com
> Phone: +44 7850 511794
--
Metric Methods(SM) "Don't be late to metricate!"
James R. Frysinger, LCAMS http://www.metricmethods.com/
10 Captiva Row e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Charleston, SC 29407 phone: 843.225.6789
