Record demand for information brought down Weather Service website

The National Weather Service experienced nearly six times its normal volume of Web traffic as a major winter storm moved across the country the last days of January 2011, leading to a slowdown and partial shutdown of its website and NWSChat, the tool the agency uses to communicate with emergency managers across the country. Read article on nextgov ...

OPINION ... Agencies like NWS really need to distinguish between public information and data needed by the emergency management community (NWSChat) and have independent capabilities to support the two missions.