[noaaport] Concerns about the future of UNIDATA

Good day everyone,

With the recent loss of 3 extremely valuable UNIDATA staff members, I wanted to inquire UNIDATA concerning several disturbing trends that I have been seeing with the organization. And quite frankly, what I discovered is disconcerting.

Over the past several years, UNIDATA has been moving away from what it was funded to do, namely: provide weather data, software, and support to the University community for teaching, and also for research:

“Unidata is a diverse community of education and research institutions with the common goal of sharing geoscience data and the tools to access and visualize that data.” – https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/about

With  this stated goal, excellent software packages used to support the educational and research communities have either been retired. or development has stopped…with minimal input from the user community. These software packages include GEMPAK, McIDAS, LDM (which hasn’t been touched on GitHub since Steve Emmerson retired), as well as others. In fact, McIDAS was sunset without any announcement or input from universities.

When I brought these concerns to the Unidata User Committee chair, Victor Gensini, I found out that he had resigned nearly a month ago. This, again, was done without any announcement to the community. The User’s Committee is much more than an advisory board; it is one of shared governance. And the decisions made over the past several years have now culminated in an utter lack of transparency with the recent loss of staff. In a scientific community, the governing process must involve transparency to the highest extent possible to maintain integrity of the staff, community, services they provide, data, and success for end users.

This is already starting to have a profoundly negative effect at the College of DuPage, which prompted me to write this. Even though we are a community college, we believe in UNIDATA’s stated vision and have shared our data via our website to all. Our setup here shares the weather data as much as we are able. Without UNIDATA’s McIDAS, GEMPAK, WXP and other software packages, we will not be able to share this data with others; additionally, we will not be able to teach the next generation of students with adequate software tools in a time where interest in the atmospheric sciences is about to peak. As a result, we have started to migrate towards commercial solutions to fill in the gaps. In the first 20 years of UNIDATA, that would be unthinkable.

What is being supported? IDV is being built on a dying platform (Java), with apparently very few users, and one of the two AWIPS developers was one of the three people let go. What is left? Two of these staff members were the future of UNIDATA, and the other took care of critical systems and engagement with underserved communities. Who is doing that now? Nobody has answered these questions.

Complete transparency has been and continues to be absolutely critical to the success that highlighted UNIDATA’s efforts over many years. These decisions have been made in darkness. Where leadership has been required, silence has occurred. It should not have been left to a terminated employee to make that announcement on his own free will.

I am saying this with all sincerity because I believe that UNIDATA is going off-mission. I am speaking out like this because I am gravely concerned that UNIDATA has lost it’s way, delving into areas beyond what it was supposed to be, while failing to maintain and flourish what it’s mission statement demands. The end result has been the loss of critical software and support that we need, as an educational institution. And let’s be blunt here: if the https://weather.cod.edu site went down, a lot of Universities who use us would be in trouble. We know, because we see the number of “hits” from them in our web logs. And, if the LDM isn’t maintained, especially with major NOAAport/SBN feed changes on the horizon, the very backbone of the NWS data feed is in jeopardy. If McIDAS isn’t maintained, our satellite imagery goes away. And despite requests for Canadian radar data and other datasets that can be helpful (several Canadian radars cover portions of the border states reasonably well), not a yes or a no has been spoken to me.

UNIDATA, as a DeSouza award winner, I beg that you turn back to what made you great: tried and true, as well as new software…data and software for all of us, and unquestionable, excellent support.

With respect,

Gilbert Sebenste

Meteorology Support Analyst