Having had a chance to work with the Governments semi-automatic
Weather Observing system (ASOS) in the early 90's and again in
2003-2004 I have seen little advancement. All data is suspect, including
Aviation safety parameters...Visibility, Cloud ceilings, remarks, etc. and
also alarming is the variance in Temperature and Dew Point values and
many sites as compared to pre ASOS data.

Am very concerned that the use of this poor system has permanetly
severely damaged much data that is used to figure Global Warming and
other major and minor Meteorological / Oceanographic issues for the last
dozen years.. We keep on hearing how the system is and has been
improved for the last several years, but the underlying problems still
continue, especially the aviation safety issues...human eye vs. a machine
prone to numerous break downs and limitations.

The Federal Government agency that invented and has maintained ASOS has
again tried to dump maintenance on another Federal Agency all maintenance,
with no luck once again..

Anyone doing Global warming studies should be aware that since about 1990
many parameters are suspect.

Ira

...........same for the precipitation gages!! (and no snow depths either).

David