Insanity Prevails

governmentshutdown.noaa.gov

nasa.gov (redirect to http://notice.usa.gov)

For now, it's not as bad as it looks for Weather Weenies.  Most of the National Weather Service pages are up and running as they fall into the "necessary to protect lives and property" category.   Even at NASA, they direct you to a nastygram if you go to nasa.gov, but I can still go direct to many of the pages I typically use.  How long that might continue remains unclear.  The National Park Service is going into shutdown mode, which means the 19 inches of snow now on the ground at the Paradise Ranger Station (with more to come) will go to waste.  Tragic.

Although the National Weather Service maintains a high level of functionality during shutdowns, I wonder how the rest of government would respond in a major weather emergency.  Forecasts are vital, but public and emergency response and recovery are critically dependent upon numerous federal agencies.  September is the peak of hurricane landfall frequency climatologically, but if you think the worst is past, one needs only look to last year and Hurricane Sandy (late October).  We are not out of the woods yet.  Wanna play with a little fire, Scarecrow?

Addendum @ 9:10 AM:

I spoke to soon.  Many useful weather pages are now inaccessible.  Easy come easy go.  The Salt Lake NWS web page states that it will be up and running.