Howdy,
Here's a question for you to consider: Did you know that the
US Department of Commerce, which is "in stewardship" of NOAA and the
National Weather Service, has subnmitted a budget that is potentially
dangerous to US public safety.
What is going on is that the Department desires to reduce the
size of the national Weather Service by closing several offices around
the country. Offices that may be closed include both Indiana offices
and the Marquette, Michigan office. Counties currently covered would
be covered by offices that are farther away, thus reducing the time it
could take for warnings to be issued or not at all.
Early rumors even indicated that offices would be closed and
responsibility devolves to a regional HQ, one that might be several
hundred miles away from a trouble spot. If the Department gets it's
way, the NWS will be gutted to the point that it's a laughingstock and
people might seek other sources of information from Weather
Underground, NEMAS or USAweather (which I volunteer my time for.)
However, there were NO public meetings held and most members
of Congress might not be aware that NWS offices in their state might
be closed down.
Worst case: Weather warnings will not be issued in a timely
fashion and the gains that the NWS has made over the last few decades
will be lost...frittered away in "budget matters". We've gone from no
warnings at all in the 1950s to a decent average of 20+ minutes
because of the advent of the Nexrad Radar System that's drastically
saved lives and even property.
If local offices are closed, the official radar sites might
also be switched off, thus undermining the overall.
At the risk of sounding like I'm spamming here, I started an
online petition at PetitionOnline that I'd like to respectfully relay
the URL to: http://www.petitiononline.com/Dt1/petition.html. There's
already a handful of signatures there and I'd love to see interested
weather people in the USA only (sorry international readers) sign.

Splinter