Decades ago, dissemination of National Weather Service products was largely done via third parties, particularly broadcast media. Then along came the Internet and suddenly NWS products became readily available to the public at-large. This should have been a benefit, but the products have not adjusted to this new paradigm.

Forget that text products are still in all-caps (I’ve found that I have a harder time reading discussions that are in mixed case). Severe weather warnings give information out of order. Warnings and even regular forecasts suffer from discontinuity at forecast area boundaries. Worst of all, forecasts do not convey uncertainty, instead providing a single number instead of a possible range.

The snow storm that hit (to one degree or another) the east coast this weekend is an excellent example of how forecast uncertainty was not well-communicated. In some areas, the forecast was quite accurate. In others, snowfall predictions were far too high. The forecasters knew there was a high degree of uncertainty about the forecast, so why did the public and civic leaders?

It’s hard to fault individual forecasters. They work hard within the system to produce valuable forecasts for the American people. It’s the management and technology that prevent the message from getting out. In recent years, the industry (including the private sector) has begun to understand the need for social science to accompany meteorological science. Hopefully this new focus will help to make products for the modern public.