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Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Metro Skywarn is a dead horse

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Albert Einstein once said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

Here is the latest rebuttal from N0KBD who is speaking on behalf of the MSW BOD evidently:

I'm sure you and most other's don't realize that the issues you have identified, accurately or not, have been discussed and rediscussed probably hundreds of times in the nearly 20 years I've been involved. The idea of a small group of "super spotter" was done and done well in the 70's and 80's in the Twin Cities. That is until they all quit about the same time for various reasons. At that point, Skywarn in the TC was all but dead.
I was determined then as I am now to be sure that doesn't happen again. If you want to ensure longevity, you must sacrifice some things. It's a constant battle to keep a balance, one that has been fought way too long by the same people.
We need more people actively involved. Those folks not only have to have a commitment, they have to be able to work collaboratively. Harsh words won't get the job done. Only hard work and good communication skills will.
Metro Skywarn board meetings are held five times a year and open to the public. The time and date are posted to SWInfo mail list prior to the date. You are always welcome to attend.


After having conversations with three different FORMER MSW trainers, the gist of each message was the same. MSW is a waste of time and effort to correct (note I did not say improve). N0KBD's quote above tells the same story of EXACTLY what the root problem is:

I'm sure you and most other's don't realize that the issues you have identified, accurately or not, have been discussed and rediscussed probably hundreds of times in the nearly 20 years I've been involved.


Unfortunately for MSW everyone in the know is quite aware of the ONGOING and REPEATED ISSUES with MSW. The only reason why I continue to pour salt in open wounds (and will continue to be openly critical of MSW)is without someone calling out MSW's continued failures as a public service organization (falling back on being a "volunteer organization" is a meaningless crutch) the sore of complacency and imcompetence will continue to fester.

I appreciate being pointed to MSW's BOD meeting times. I can assure you I was quite aware of the meeting times and location prior to the link being conveniently supplied. The question to be posed can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no" response. Is MSW willing to FINALLY put some type of quality control and a measure of accountability at the spotter level in place? That is what it has been all along and well before I spoke up on the issue. Let me revert back to my conversations with the three FORMER MSW trainers....all of them brought up these same issues in the past and were SHOT DOWN. They gave up. They quit. This is nothing new people. Sounds to my like a lot people were already aware of it. It's just a younger, more experienced, and savvy demographic seeing the same issues. Plain and simple.

MSW will continue to be a farce with it's current operational model. That is obvious and I have stated what the fix is. I think it would be interesting to show up for a MSW board meeting and have their response ON VIDEO TAPE to the question stated above. My guess is if they (the board) is held accountable for committing to change, they will balk...plain and simple. No one likes to admit they have failed and they don't want to step on anyone's ego. Why in the world would they commit to improvement now when they have failed to do so for 20 years evidently?

So, going forward, I will continue to supply training materials for the WFO's who inquire. But in the same breath, I will also continue to make examples out of incompetent Skywarn reports. Plain and simple.

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