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National Weather Service will stop using all caps in its forecasts

28 points by aaronbrethorst 11y ago

awinter-py 11y ago
Just don't change the voice on the weather radio. I don't know how they pack 5 syllables into 'coastal w-aters' but we won't get our money's worth with less.
- samcheng 11y ago
  Or reading "CLOUDY" with an emphasis on the "OW" - for every day in the forecast (when living in Seattle...) I guess his name is "Tom" http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/info/newvoice.html http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/info/newvoice.html
  - awinter-py 11y ago
    once you name them you can never get rid of them
samcheng 11y ago
There's a reason their weather forecasts were in ALL CAPS. After all, they've been transmitting weather forecasts and data electronically since before the (US) Civil War! They predate ASCII by over 100 years... http://www.weather.gov/timeline http://www.weather.gov/timeline If you ever want an inside look into the weather, and can put up with some meteorology jargon and ALL CAPS, the forecast discussions are quite interesting! Here's one for San Francisco, discussing the light rain maybe coming Wednesday night: http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=mtr&product=AFD&format=CI&glossary=1 http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=mt... If you read these, and then watch the local TV weatherman, you'll notice some of the same language - the weather announcers read these, too!
hiopilit 11y ago
I was a youth volunteer at the NWS office in Spokane, WA circa ~1990+. I remember typing out the messages onto the terminals that were given to me by the team there. It was always caps. But, in cool ways, the main terminals all had track balls, using a can opener to open up the cans before we put them onto balloons, and recording the actual NWS broadcasts myself are some of the great memories. I became a pilot and use their forecast data all the time. I was given a WWII original E6B style device by one of the guys there which I hold onto with it's leather case. Lots of respect for those people who day in and day out take measurements on the ground/air all around the country and world. The Internet provides it to us assuming it's just a given fact, but, it's taken huge number of individuals to produce weather data.
upofadown 11y ago
>this holdover was carried into modern times since some customers still used the old equipment. Even ASCII mechanical teletype printers will map lower case to upper case. They just have to ignore a bit. Five level codes have no distinction between upper and lower case. I think the real reason is just the convention caused by the fact that the printers produced upper case. People get to the point where they see the complete words/abbreviations as thoughts. It's really just a complicated shape. Since everyone will have to learn the new shapes I predict there will actually be some complaining about the change. Oh, and upper case letters are larger and more distinct. Some people are now going to have to hunt up their reading glasses and/or change their font size. Considering how simple the concepts are, it might make sense to skip the intermediate representation and just define some Unicode pictographs...

Just don't change the voice on the weather radio. I don't know how they pack 5 syllables into 'coastal w-aters' but we won't get our money's worth with less.

samcheng 11y ago
Or reading "CLOUDY" with an emphasis on the "OW" - for every day in the forecast (when living in Seattle...) I guess his name is "Tom" http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/info/newvoice.html http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/info/newvoice.html
- awinter-py 11y ago
  once you name them you can never get rid of them

samcheng 11y ago

There's a reason their weather forecasts were in ALL CAPS. After all, they've been transmitting weather forecasts and data electronically since before the (US) Civil War! They predate ASCII by over 100 years... http://www.weather.gov/timeline http://www.weather.gov/timeline If you ever want an inside look into the weather, and can put up with some meteorology jargon and ALL CAPS, the forecast discussions are quite interesting! Here's one for San Francisco, discussing the light rain maybe coming Wednesday night: http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=mtr&product=AFD&format=CI&glossary=1 http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=NWS&issuedby=mt... If you read these, and then watch the local TV weatherman, you'll notice some of the same language - the weather announcers read these, too!

hiopilit 11y ago

I was a youth volunteer at the NWS office in Spokane, WA circa ~1990+. I remember typing out the messages onto the terminals that were given to me by the team there. It was always caps. But, in cool ways, the main terminals all had track balls, using a can opener to open up the cans before we put them onto balloons, and recording the actual NWS broadcasts myself are some of the great memories. I became a pilot and use their forecast data all the time. I was given a WWII original E6B style device by one of the guys there which I hold onto with it's leather case. Lots of respect for those people who day in and day out take measurements on the ground/air all around the country and world. The Internet provides it to us assuming it's just a given fact, but, it's taken huge number of individuals to produce weather data.

upofadown 11y ago

>this holdover was carried into modern times since some customers still used the old equipment. Even ASCII mechanical teletype printers will map lower case to upper case. They just have to ignore a bit. Five level codes have no distinction between upper and lower case. I think the real reason is just the convention caused by the fact that the printers produced upper case. People get to the point where they see the complete words/abbreviations as thoughts. It's really just a complicated shape. Since everyone will have to learn the new shapes I predict there will actually be some complaining about the change. Oh, and upper case letters are larger and more distinct. Some people are now going to have to hunt up their reading glasses and/or change their font size. Considering how simple the concepts are, it might make sense to skip the intermediate representation and just define some Unicode pictographs...