On Apr 15, 5:59?am, "John" wrote:
On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 05:56:15 UTC, "Weatherlawyer"
declaimed:

If you copy and paste this sort of stuff into a WordProcessor such as
Writer the free one supplied by the Open Source project:
http://www.openoffice.org/product/writer.htmlyou will be able to
remove the shouting fairly quickly.

but WHY DOES THE US WEATHER SERVICE SHOUT in their forecasts????
--
Remove letters in caps from email address before replying

We have the same problem in the UK.

I believe it dates from the times when all computed printouts were in
such a format.

Why no-one has thought to change this is beyond me. However if the way
things are going over here is matched in the USA, they will not get
better.

They are closing down weather centres all over the place if they can,
this leads to strange weather reports concerning cloud cover.

Also the lack of human input, relied on for correcting computer
forecasts, is bound to have knock on effects that the overstretched
human resources will be unable to do much about until too late.

And the time it takes for a techie to correct anything as simple as
shouting is going to go unspent. I imagine it would require the
setting up of an international committee of the sort that only meets
to lard their own arses, get ****ed up and spend as much time as
possible alone with their highly paid personal assistants.

Searching the groups got me this fairly recent discussion:

I dare say that there is a good reason for all theshouting but that
too is looking rather stale.

I presume by "shouting" you mean the use of capitals.

I wrote to the MetOffice the best part of a year ago with particular
reference to the use of capitals throughout in AIRMET and other text
products.

The reply was along the lines that it is easier to read in capitals
and they had no intention whatsoever of changing. I have to say that
I formed the impression that they were telling me to shut-up and go
away.

Some sites do turn Metars in to plain language, eg X/C weather, but
many pilots prefer code - it's like another language that can be"
absorbed" without actually going through any process of
"translation". I for one like code, but it has to be better presented
and not based on outdated teleprinter methods from the 1950s.

And another thread turned up the fact that all government internal
messages of that sort have them in that type. Something to do with the
level of investment on advisory services of all ranks, world wide.

The people who do the actual dropping out of the sky, or getting swept
up into it, are not usually the people involved in updating ancient
computers when the money could be better spent elsewhere.

(Such as junkets where pallid, greasy adulterers can get away from
their wives for a few days.)

The other side of the coin of course is that we get chumps like Andrew
Lane in charge of updating the BBC's computer presentations.

God almighty; what a balls up that is!

I wonder how much he made out of reducing synoptic charts to the level
of hand waving not seen since the HM's RN moved from sail to steam.