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SCOOP with @JSamenow: The Nat'l Weather Service lacks sufficient internet bandwidth to keep its websites and models running reliably & proposes limiting the amount of data people can access. This could affect forecast, warning accuracy. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/12/09/nws-data-limits-internet-bandwidth/ 1/
The issue concerns how the agency's models and weather observations are disseminated and accessed from a central hub. As new and more complex models come online and private sector data demands grow, agency telecom capabilities haven't kept up. 2/
Private weather company execs tell us this could seriously harm their businesses and cost customers $$$, plus damaging the Weather Service's competitiveness vs. other countries. 3/
Lawmakers and Hill staff, caught off guard by the data limitation proposal, say requests for more $$ for improving Weather Service data capabilities would likely receive bipartisan support. NWS says they only need $1.5 million to fix this problem. 4/
In recent years, the Weather Service's websites and back end tech services have had high-profile failures, some during severe weather events. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/09/19/this-is-not-rocket-science-years-after-promising-fix-national-weather-service-website-still-proves-unreliable/ 5/
NOAA as a whole is moving to take advantage of cloud computing and private sector satellites to improve its observation & prediction capabilities, but this issue, our sources said, is tied to the weather data requests users are making to the NWS specifically. 6/
This proposal is not yet final, and the agency is taking public input. 7/
And yes, this story reminds me of "The Internet is a Series of Tubes" meme from the late-Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). http://www.cc.com/video-clips/uo1ore/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-headlines---internet
