Stormy Weather - Rick Santorums forecast

Slightly out of the focus of the media, Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania wants to take away your free, unbiased weather forecast. He introduced a new bill that is so generic and unspecific that it can be interpreted as doing away with the National Weather Services' (advertisement) free weather forecast.

The issue looks like cronyism, Accuweather, one of the largest commercial forecast companies is located in Pennsylvania and, of course, supports Santorums bill. And the bill is excellent for such commercial forecasters - requiring the National Weather Service to deliver all its data to commercial forecasters but prevents it from actually giving a forecast.

Would the free service of the National Weather Service be missed? Of course, because it is responsible for storm, flood and a lot of other warnings. I for sure would miss the forecast, I think it is better than the forecast delivered by the commercial forecasters. I am talking accuracy here: Ever noticed how the next weekends forecast is `clear skies, nice, weather ' Mondays through Wednesdays, `a mixture of clouds and sun' on Thursdays and `unseasonably cool and rainy' on Fridays? Happens quite often. Also, commercial forecasts tend to predict too high temperatures during the cold season as well as cooler temperatures during the hot season (personal observation, but compare the forecast from your local PBS with a commercial one - the commercial forecast is usually the `nicer' one, though not accurate). Of course, those TV or radio stations that give you a commercial forecast want to keep you as a consumer, and who wants to hear bad news?

So let Senator Santorum know that it is necessary to change his bill, so that the National Weather Service can keep forecasting. You may have a shot here: Santorum is running behind his challenger in polls in Pennsylvania for this Novembers election, and can't ignore the wishes of the populace as he otherwise could or would...