Even though I have been away from NOAA for years now, I sometimes dream that I'm still at work for them. A dream last night was very strange. I dreamed I was in Washington D.C. at meetings where the topic of discussion and planning was the merger of the National Weather Service with the United States Postal Service. Apparently the reason and motivation for this merger was that NWS employees could work at the Post Office and deliver mail during fair weather days. Strange brew or bad indigestion.
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Edited to add - A reader alerted me to the following:
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"Postal delivery trucks could carry one or more sensors to gather and upload useful data according to an article appearing in Popular Science magazine this month. http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-03/postal-network-usps-trucks-could-monitor-air-quality-road-conditions-and-traffic Among the uses: detecting and mapping pollution, weather, RF signals (cell, WiFi, broadcast), gas leaks, and road conditions, as well as homeland security uses like detecting radiation sources or dangerous chemicals. The wide-ranging idea was developed and described in a recent white paper http://www.prc.gov/prc-docs/Ravnitzky_Postal_Sensors_Paper.pdf A workshop on this topic is scheduled for April 12th in Washington, DC http://www.usmesnet.org/meeting.html This month, the Postmaster General sent a letter to Senator Thomas Carper, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee that oversees the Postal Service, expressing interest in exploring this concept."
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