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Tuesday, October 02, 2018

Maybe it's time to run the weather like a business

Despite the ever present creeping doom of climate apocalypse providing the backdrop, we still only have a couple acceptable ways of complaining about the weather.  Even when we observe the change, "you know back in the day, it used to get nicer this time of year..." we sound like cranky old men.

Most commonly we use our disgruntled customer voice. "90 degrees and muggy is not what we ordered for October.  Get your manger on the phone." Maybe this is why we're on the verge of privatizing the operation.
Some of the people that Trump has nominated for key government posts Lewis views as deeply troubling.

Take Trump's choice to head National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Commerce Department agency that, among other responsibilities, oversees the National Weather Service. For that critical position, Trump has chosen Barry Myers, who is CEO of the private forecasting service AccuWeather. As Lewis points out, AccuWeather repackages the weather service's own data and sells it to private concerns for a profit. Myers at one time argued that "the government should get out of the forecasting business." In other words, you want to know if it's going to rain tomorrow? Or which way that hurricane is tracking? Well, buy our app, or subscribe to our forecasts. Myers has yet to be confirmed.

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