Let's enhance our Northwest coastal radar
In ancient Greece, you learned of the future by visiting the Oracle at Delphi. Purported to be a seer of great vision, the priestess would inhale the volcanic vapors emerging from a crack in the Earth in or around the temple of Apollo, get a little stoned, and start speaking prophesies.
With all due respect to the culture of ancient Greece, without which our own culture would doubtless be unrecognizably different, these days we do things a little more scientifically.
And there is one area of modern life that benefits most from scientific visions of the near future: weather prediction.
Although it is still imperfect, weather prediction has gotten a lot better in the past few decades, for two main reasons.
First, computers simulations of weather phenomena have gotten pretty good. Give them good data, and they produce pretty good results 24 to 48 hours into the future. It's not the same as being able to schedule your wedding day six months into the future with confidence that you won't get rained on, but it's not bad.
The second reason is implicit in the first. Nationally, we actually have a lot of good data to put into those simulations.
Mainly this data comes from improvements in real-time measurements via weather radars, weather satellites, and a growing network of weather stations.
Except, not here in the Northwest.
The Puget Sound region is fortunate to have within it our own Weather Oracle, in the form of U.W. Atmospheric Scientist Cliff Mass.
Cliff has a regular segment on the Friday episodes of KUOW's Weekday program. He has written an excellent book on local weather phenomena.
And he writes a very up-to-the-minute weather blog. His blog is particularly fabulous. It gives you the forecast, plus the factors behind it. I like to call it "weather forecasts for smart people."
Cliff Mass is a great weatherman, but he can only do so much because our local weather infrastructure is, not to put too fine a point on it, broken. The Pacific Northwest lacks anything even close to adequate coastal radar coverage. Check out this map of radar coverage up and down the West Coast. The red parts are where the weather radars can't see:
Look at that 200+ mile stretch of red, from near the top corner of Washington down to about Corvallis in Oregon. That's the radar shadow of the Olympic mountains, and what it means is that when weather systems approach from offshore, Cliff Mass and his team of powerful computer simulations don't have the good data they need to produce accurate forecasts.
Our Oracle is blind.
And in the finest tradition of Greek tragedy, the ironic part is that it doesn't have to be this way. We could have coastal radar coverage just as good as the rest of the nation for an incredibly low cost.
Well, low by the standards of public infrastructure. A lot of money for you or me, but "loose change under the couch cushions" money compared to the typical costs of other important pieces of the common wealth's infrastructure.
Certainly a lot less than the pieces of infrastructure that get all the press: roads, rails, tunnels, bridges.
Cliff Mass estimates that this problem could be fixed for about 3 to 4 million dollars. Or in comparative terms, half as much as the U.W. proposed spending to renovate its golf driving range.
As budget decisions go, this should really be a no-brainer.
We need look no further than last December's snow fiasco in the middle of Christmas shopping season to see the financial impact that weather events have on our region. Spending a few million dollars on a coastal radar system has got to be a great investment.
It won't let us change the weather, but it will let us be prepared for it. And if anything, the way that our region was caught flat-footed by the Great Blizzard of '08 ought to teach us a lesson. If Seattle and the surrounding suburbs had been given another 24 or 48 hours notice that the snow was coming, and they knew that the forecast was reliable, don't you think they could have done a better job?
Ok, yeah, they might have still screwed it up. But you can bet that after the mountains of complaints that Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and the Seattle City Council received in the wake of the snow, they are now highly motivated to do better next time. As are the city governments of Redmond, Woodinville, Renton, et cetera.
A coastal radar will give them the forecasts they need to do better next time, so next time there will be no such excuses.
In the middle of this economic crisis, when the Obama administration is trying its best to spend money hand-over-fist on "shovel ready" infrastructure projects and green energy, we encourage the administration not to overlook projects like coastal weather radars. Sure, this project may not be as sexy as a cool new wind farm or putting solar panels on top of millions of government buildings, but it is "shovel ready" right now and in the long run is just as important a part of the nation's overall infrastructure.
We call on Governor Gregoire and every mayor and city council member in Western Washington to ask the Obama administration to fund this important local project.
With all due respect to the culture of ancient Greece, without which our own culture would doubtless be unrecognizably different, these days we do things a little more scientifically.
And there is one area of modern life that benefits most from scientific visions of the near future: weather prediction.
Although it is still imperfect, weather prediction has gotten a lot better in the past few decades, for two main reasons.
First, computers simulations of weather phenomena have gotten pretty good. Give them good data, and they produce pretty good results 24 to 48 hours into the future. It's not the same as being able to schedule your wedding day six months into the future with confidence that you won't get rained on, but it's not bad.
The second reason is implicit in the first. Nationally, we actually have a lot of good data to put into those simulations.
Mainly this data comes from improvements in real-time measurements via weather radars, weather satellites, and a growing network of weather stations.
Except, not here in the Northwest.
The Puget Sound region is fortunate to have within it our own Weather Oracle, in the form of U.W. Atmospheric Scientist Cliff Mass.
Cliff has a regular segment on the Friday episodes of KUOW's Weekday program. He has written an excellent book on local weather phenomena.
And he writes a very up-to-the-minute weather blog. His blog is particularly fabulous. It gives you the forecast, plus the factors behind it. I like to call it "weather forecasts for smart people."
Cliff Mass is a great weatherman, but he can only do so much because our local weather infrastructure is, not to put too fine a point on it, broken. The Pacific Northwest lacks anything even close to adequate coastal radar coverage. Check out this map of radar coverage up and down the West Coast. The red parts are where the weather radars can't see:
Look at that 200+ mile stretch of red, from near the top corner of Washington down to about Corvallis in Oregon. That's the radar shadow of the Olympic mountains, and what it means is that when weather systems approach from offshore, Cliff Mass and his team of powerful computer simulations don't have the good data they need to produce accurate forecasts.
Our Oracle is blind.
And in the finest tradition of Greek tragedy, the ironic part is that it doesn't have to be this way. We could have coastal radar coverage just as good as the rest of the nation for an incredibly low cost.
Well, low by the standards of public infrastructure. A lot of money for you or me, but "loose change under the couch cushions" money compared to the typical costs of other important pieces of the common wealth's infrastructure.
Certainly a lot less than the pieces of infrastructure that get all the press: roads, rails, tunnels, bridges.
Cliff Mass estimates that this problem could be fixed for about 3 to 4 million dollars. Or in comparative terms, half as much as the U.W. proposed spending to renovate its golf driving range.
As budget decisions go, this should really be a no-brainer.
We need look no further than last December's snow fiasco in the middle of Christmas shopping season to see the financial impact that weather events have on our region. Spending a few million dollars on a coastal radar system has got to be a great investment.
It won't let us change the weather, but it will let us be prepared for it. And if anything, the way that our region was caught flat-footed by the Great Blizzard of '08 ought to teach us a lesson. If Seattle and the surrounding suburbs had been given another 24 or 48 hours notice that the snow was coming, and they knew that the forecast was reliable, don't you think they could have done a better job?
Ok, yeah, they might have still screwed it up. But you can bet that after the mountains of complaints that Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and the Seattle City Council received in the wake of the snow, they are now highly motivated to do better next time. As are the city governments of Redmond, Woodinville, Renton, et cetera.
A coastal radar will give them the forecasts they need to do better next time, so next time there will be no such excuses.
In the middle of this economic crisis, when the Obama administration is trying its best to spend money hand-over-fist on "shovel ready" infrastructure projects and green energy, we encourage the administration not to overlook projects like coastal weather radars. Sure, this project may not be as sexy as a cool new wind farm or putting solar panels on top of millions of government buildings, but it is "shovel ready" right now and in the long run is just as important a part of the nation's overall infrastructure.
We call on Governor Gregoire and every mayor and city council member in Western Washington to ask the Obama administration to fund this important local project.
# Posted by Jason Black : 10:52 AM
Comments:
Post a Comment