PIERRE: A company like DTN would advise a festival organizer not to wait for the severe storm warning, but instead to keep an eye out for wind speeds that could seriously damage their equipment. And those have wind thresholds that may be lower or higher than that severe thunderstorm warning. VANDEWEGE: And at those festivals, they will set up temporary stages, temporary, you know, monitors - like, big TVs. That warning might not be sufficient for some of DTN's clients, which include outdoor music festivals. PIERRE: For example, when a weather event is given a severe thunderstorm warning, the wind speed is generally 58 miles per hour or stronger. RENNY VANDEWEGE: A weather forecast is a great thing, but our goal is to transform that forecast into operational intelligence for customers. He oversees over 120 meteorologists around the world. Renny Vandewege is the vice president of weather operations at DTN. PIERRE: The weather service's forecasting is very detailed and accurate, but private companies say that there are opportunities to interpret these forecasts to better prepare the public. PIERRE: She says all of that work is the foundation of the weather enterprise, but weather services can't create public safety alone in a vacuum.īUCHANAN: It takes a broad range of partnerships across federal, local, state governments and even the general public and the private weather sector. SUSAN BUCHANAN: We collect all the environmental data through our satellites, our ocean buoys. Susan Buchanan is a spokesperson with NOAA. It has field offices all over the country, and commercial weather services like AccuWeather use federal data for the forecast that you see on your smartphone or TV. The agency is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. PIERRE: The National Weather Service is trying to address this. And so communicating that to people saying, hey, maybe you don't want to leave work early today. JENKINS: With Ida, the threat was coming probably around rush hour. PIERRE: He says the storm's threat could have been communicated a lot better. GREG JENKINS: The weather service warned that this was possible, but they couldn't tell you if your street was going to flood. Greg Jenkins is a meteorology professor at Penn State and was near Philadelphia when Ida hit and caused massive flooding. Historically, working with a private weather forecaster is something that farmers or industry have relied on, but other cities and counties might start turning to these companies, too. PIERRE: Now the city is planning to hire a private weather forecasting company to get a quote, unquote, "second opinion" on weather-related events. It was a wake-up call for the mayor, Bill de Blasio.īILL DE BLASIO: What we're realizing now is, even with the information we get from the National Weather Service, we're going to have to be much more cautious because the warnings we get are not sufficient. They tweeted out the warning at 9:30 p.m., but by that time, the storm had already dumped enough rain to flood the subway. JEFFREY PIERRE, BYLINE: For the first time ever this past September, the National Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency in New York City. This is a worry for New York, where officials are poised to hire private weather forecasting company to supplement forecasts they already get from government scientists. To learn more about weather station terminology, please consult the Weather Observation Station page of the NCDC.As storms and extreme weather events are getting worse due to climate change, city could find themselves facing new threats. Not every station reports every day, and some stations never report certain values. Information from the NCDC may be incomplete. Weather data collected from the National Climatic Data Center Global Surface Summary of Day. Looking forward? See the famous Old Farmer's Almanac long-range weather predictions. But also there are personal reasons for example, knowing about typical weather is helpful for vacation travel, planning an outdoor event or wedding, and planning for outdoor activities such as sailing (think wind!). How do you use weather history? There are so many practices uses for business from developing informed business forecasts to understanding road and accident conditions. The Old Farmer's Almanac weather history tool provides access to weather reports from over 1,300 weather stations in cities across the United States and Canada, reporting on past temperatures, precipitation, snow, pressure, dew point, and wind speeds. Interested in weather history? Access weather history data for dates going back to 1945! It's both useful and fun-whether you're planning a trip or just want to know the weather on a special date.
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