Should Public Weather Forecasters Be Sued?

Since 1951, several lawsuits have been filed against agencies that provide weather forecasts to the public, such as the National Weather Service (formerly the U.S. Weather Bureau). These lawsuits were filed by companies or individuals who lost either property or loved ones due to significant weather events

Those who support legal liability for public weather forecasts feel that meteorologists are professionals. Supporters claim forecasters should always be accurate since there are so many tools and sources of information available with today’s technology. According to one textbook, information is gathered from 130 nations and about 10,000 stations on land and sea (Lutgens and Tarbuck, 280). With all the information available today from the Internet, new radars, and advanced satellites, if one sensor or station malfunctions, there are still plenty of areas to gather data from. However, forecasters are not omnipotent and information is always wide open to interpretation. Information is not always analyzed or interpreted the same by different forecasters. One forecaster may make a prediction that the weather will be rainy and cold four days from now while another one claims conditions will be partly cloudy and mild. A difference in a forecast does not show any level of incompetence or negligence, but rather a difference in opinions. The public is sometimes uninformed on how to interpret information that is passed to them by meteorologists and often view a statement of opinion as fact.

In 1957, the U.S. government was sued for negligence in the deaths of a woman and her five children. Whitney Bartie claimed that the Weather Bureau had failed to give his family accurate information regarding the path, speed, and intensity of Hurricane Audrey’s storm surge. The result was a hurricane that made landfall on the Louisiana coastline almost 24 hours earlier than originally predicted and killed almost all of the Bartie family. The courts in this case dismissed the lawsuit, claiming the Weather Bureau was exempt due to exceptions listed in the FTCA. As an expert in the case explained, predictions of the future tracks of hurricanes were off by 100 to 125 miles on average (Klein and Pielke). It was the opinion of the forecasters at the time that the storm was weaker and moving slower than it really was. Since the conclusions about the hurricane’s path were based on all possible data at the time, the forecasters were not negligent and could not be held liable for the deaths.

One reason public weather forecasters should not be liable is that weather predictions are made up of numerous and varied factors. Any one of these elements can quickly change a forecast for better or worse. There are many different factors occurring in our atmosphere at any given time, from moisture content and wind direction to pressure levels and movement of fronts. If any element of the atmosphe

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