Gary England throws weather service under the bus

[patric]

When you're a dinosaur high on yourself...


NORMAN, Oklahoma -- With severe weather season around the corner the National Weather Service is sounding the alarm. The agency said proposed cuts could cost people lives.

But News 9's Chief Meteorologist Gary England, who has great respect for the National Weather Service, questions their motives.

"Lives lost, [those are] scare tactics. This guy is a professional scare man. He likes to scare people, that's his job to rouse all the troops up, scare them the end is near, the warnings will not be there, the forecasts won't be there. They'll be there," said England.

England said he and his team of meteorologist have the necessary equipment to continue to provide viewers with the most up-to-date forecasts and warnings.

[Ed W]

I thought the locals relied on NWS for regional radar coverage while using their own for the metro area.  Regardless, there have been previous attempts to de-fund NWS in favor of private weather services that require subscriptions.

[Hoss]

England's a little kooky.  But for sure he is full of himself.  He reminds me of an older person with ADHD.

[DTowner]

Like all bureaucracies, the NWS will tell tales of doom to protect its budget from cuts irrespective of merit.  No agency ever says it has uncessary appropriations/programs that could easily be cut without any disruption to its core services/mission.

[nathanm]

Here's the thing DTowner..NWS has been doing more with less for over a decade now. The WSR-88D radars are getting up there in age and it shows with the increasingly frequent outages.

[SXSW]

The NWS could probably consolidate offices and be fine.  For instance Tulsa/eastern OK could be managed from Norman.  Northwest AR, which is now managed from Tulsa, could be part of Little Rock.  Texas is covered by 13 different offices: El Paso, Midland, Lubbock, Amarillo, Norman, San Angelo, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Brownsville, Houston, Lake Charles, and Shreveport.  You could take that down to 4: Midland (west Texas), Amarillo (Panhandle), San Antonio (south Texas), Fort Worth (north Texas) and Houston (east Texas).  You could probably split the number of offices around the country in half and still provide adequate coverage.

[nathanm]

The NWS could probably consolidate offices and be fine.  For instance Tulsa/eastern OK could be managed from Norman.  Northwest AR, which is now managed from Tulsa, could be part of Little Rock.  Texas is covered by 13 different offices: El Paso, Midland, Lubbock, Amarillo, Norman, San Angelo, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Brownsville, Houston, Lake Charles, and Shreveport.  You could take that down to 4: Midland (west Texas), Amarillo (Panhandle), San Antonio (south Texas), Fort Worth (north Texas) and Houston (east Texas).  You could probably split the number of offices around the country in half and still provide adequate coverage.

Sure, if you eliminate most of the work they're doing or don't reduce headcount.

[Conan71]

Like all bureaucracies, the NWS will tell tales of doom to protect its budget from cuts irrespective of merit.  No agency ever says it has uncessary appropriations/programs that could easily be cut without any disruption to its core services/mission.

+1

Like Gary England has room to talk.  He's one of the media meteorologists selling fear to get people to tune in and raise ad revenue for Channel 9 when the inevatible stormgasm season starts.

We are seeing this with every local, state, and federal agency under the microscope right now.  Administrators are fighting to keep their job and the jobs of their loyal troops.  I make the assumption that much of NWS is very automated these days and could require fewer people to operate, but I've never worked around them and have no real clue about what the assignment load is like for people working at NWS.  I wish Charky would chime in on this one.

I do consider NWS to be an essential service of government but simply can't speak to their relative efficiency or inefficiency.