SFist: AlertSF's Alarming Alarmism

wsanders

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:15:49 -0800

NOAA shouts at us out of tradition, I suppose. Occasionally these reports are transmitted via fax and the all-uppercasing probably improves readability. Teleprompter text is all uppercase too, FWIW, for readability.

chrisr

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:02:18 -0800

On the AlertSF website, you can also opt opt out of weather messages completely under MyAlerts.

mpantone

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:37:36 -0800

Aleph1 is correct, the NWS reports are uppercase, including Hazardous Weather Outlooks and Special Weather Statements. It's more likely that the NWS is using modern computers, but they've retained the old uppercase report format for backwards compatibility with older devices and systems (I dunno, text pagers, aircraft and marine gear, teletype maybe).

aleph1

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:26:19 -0800

Its not AlertSF. All National Weather Service reports are in uppercase for some reason, probably because they a process on some old computer system.