House Hearing on Private Sector Weather Forecasting, June 2016

The House Science, Space and Technology Committee’s Subcommittee on Environment held a hearing on June 8, 2016 on “Private Sector Weather Forecasting: Assessing Products and Technologies.”  Congress is requiring NOAA to conduct a pilot project to obtain private sector satellite data to determine whether it can be incorporated into its numerical weather models.  Among the witnesses was Alexander (Sandy) MacDonald of Spire Global, one of the companies that plans to provide the type of data NOAA will use for the pilot project (GPS-Radio Occultation data).  Antonio (Tony) Busalacchi, the incoming President of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), was another witness.  He argued that Congress should request a Decadal Survey to provide strategic planning for the U.S. weather enterprise –a three-legged stool involving the government, the private sector, and academic/research.  The other three witnesses were:  Barry Myers, CEO of AccuWeather; Jim Black, Chief Meteorological Officer of Schneider Electric; and Neil Jacobs, Chief Scientist of Panasonic Weather Solutions.  SpacePolicyOnline.com published a summary of the hearing on June 9.