Back in the day we would foretell the weather by going outside and looking around, often disgustingly inserting a finger in our mouths and holding it to the wind. No, seriously. Then television happened and hand-drawn weather maps and meteorology jargon introduced the idea weather happened everywhere, not just here.
When radar came into use for scanning approaching weather it was as life-altering as pizza. Local broadcasts began a competition for fancier and better displays. Those glory days ended when the internet put that power into the hands of anyone.
Like many other farmers, I relied for years on the National Weather Service for my go-to radar and forecasts. While there were fancier sites, the nws.gov was:
- Free.
- Advertisement-free.
- Familiar.
So, people of a respectable age could navigate without a learning curve. That trusty computer app stood by me as I muttered those old phrases: “It will go around us,” and “It can’t miss us this time.”
NEW AND IMPROVED
But forces were gathering momentum to force us to another NWS website ominously described as “new and improved!”
The first of these was a tiny helpless software company named Adobe, who provided the program Flash Player, which had become the 15/16" wrench of the animation needs for programmers. With only multiple warnings beginning in 2017, they tried futilely to inform users and coders, “Hey, we’re serious about this – I will stop this car and come back there! Don’t think I won’t!” These threats fell on earbudded skulls.
In fairness, Adobe strong-armed the bandwidth appetite of basement-dwelling gamers. For anatomically impossible fantasy figures to slay, scheme and pose heroically at ever-higher resolution and speed, trusty Flash Player was no longer up to the task. NWS snapped into action, taking only three years (roughly two lifetimes for programmers) to come up with a new version.
A FEW RUDE EMOJIS
The rollout did not go well, with beta (guinea pig) users offering comments such as “*%@$%” and some very rude emojis. I tried the site and discovered it thought Chrisman, Ill., was a few miles south of Midland, Mich.
Although this would be an improvement, it was useless to decide whether to head for the shed. It has no easily accessed accumulated rainfall maps, so we don’t know which friends to gloat to or worry over.
In a possibly unrelated story, this debacle occurred under the leadership of the first non-scientist to head NOAA – former Accuweather CEO, Barry Myers. This interesting choice should remind us that if we want to run government like a business, we should first ask, “Whose business?”
Mom was right. This is why we can’t have nice things.
