Accuweather
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AccuWeather is a large American company that provides weather forecasting services. It was founded in 1962 by Dr. Joel N. Myers, then a Penn State graduate student working on degrees in meteorology, who was forecasting weather for a gas company in Pennsylvania. The company became officially known under the name "AccuWeather" in 1971. As well as running the company, Myers became a member of the school's faculty and taught many meteorologists, and AccuWeather is still headquartered in State College, Pennsylvania, the home of the Pennsylvania State University.
AccuWeather has been a vocal critic of the National Weather Service, a part of the U.S. government's NOAA, in that it provides free weather forecasting services to the general public. They argue that the government competes with them directly and unfairly, and on April 14, 2005 senator Rick Santorum introduced the "National Weather Services Duties Act of 2005" to the U.S. Senate that would prohibit the NWS from providing products or services the private sector is willing and able to provide (S. 786). The bill is currently pending.
AccuWeather provides national weather updates on WSVN's FOX AccuWeather Channel, WFMZ-TV's Accu Weather Channel, WABC-TV's "Eyewitness News Now", and WLS-TV's "ABC 7 News Now". The first three are actual channels while the latter is a web-only streaming weather channel. Local weather updates by the stations are also provided every 15 minutes. The format of these channels is similar to NBC Weather Plus.
See also
External links
- [AccuWeather website]
- ["National Weather Services Duties Act of 2005"]
- ["Santorum's Mighty Wind"] Slate.com article
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