NWSEO Responses To Restructuring

The NWS Employees Organization (NWSEO) has an extensive set of responses and suggestions related to the NWS proposed restructuring effort (see previous post). I have been steered to a site at which these can be viewed: 

 http://www.nwseo.org/member_news.php

There are many links there to more detailed position and information documents. Again, I am just going to share parts of what's available at the above link here (although I added a bit of highlighting) and will comment some later.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

National Weather Service Discloses Plans to Move away from Local Forecasts – 

Move to Part Time Offices (October 21, 2016, Washington D.C.) Instead of filling more than 600 vacancies, the National Weather Service announces plans to eliminate the work of local forecasters and distribute forecasts and guidance produced by a Washington D.C. Center. Local forecasts, prepared with the expertise of local meteorologists, will give way [to] automated forecasts based largely on computer models. The plan will lead to a degradation of service with local weather forecast office hours reduced from the current 24/7/365 schedule to part-time and in some cases, possibly seasonal operations. 

The expertise of local forecasters is critical to the NWS mission of saving lives. Each geographic region has its own unique weather patterns. Local forecasters understand these patterns and apply this knowledge to the computer models. Their intimate knowledge of these weather patterns, the geographic region, the flood prone areas, and the demographics of people whose lives they protect are critical to their lifesaving work. 

The NWS’s new plans would change the role of the local meteorologist from using their expertise and knowledge of local weather patterns to a “weather briefer” who is no longer responsible for the forecast, but instead disseminates information from the Washington Center. The plan also mentions the use of flexible staffing that could include migrant meteorologists who travel to locations based on severe weather needs; a position that negates the value of local expertise, knowledge of unique local weather patterns, and familiarity with the geographic location and flood prone areas. One of the most critical problems of relying on national center forecasts is the disconnect that would develop between the largely centralized “forecast” and the local weather patterns, cultural, and geographical information that local forecasters provide. 

Forecasters would be routinely placed in a compromising position of having to choose between a briefing based on an official/centralized forecast with which they disagreed, or briefing based on their own judgment informed by extensive local knowledge. It is the National Weather Service Employees Organization’s stand that the ownership of the forecast must be at the final point of delivery. 
--------------------------------------------------
The phrase "migrant meteorologist" caught my attention, and I could easily envision myself as a young, migrant forecaster heading west for my next assignment.