THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WILL STOP YELLING AT YOU!

Beginning Wednesday, National Weather Service forecasts will stop yelling at you.  That's because NOAA's National Weather Service is phasing out using all caps for forecasts.

New forecast software is allowing the agency to break out of the days when weather reports were sent by "the wire" over teleprinters, which were basically typewriters hooked up to telephone lines. Teleprinters only allowed the use of upper case letters, and while the hardware and software used for weather forecasting has advanced over the last century, this holdover was carried into modern times since some customers still used the old equipment.

The National Weather Service has proposed to use mixed-case letters several times since the 1990s, when widespread use of the Internet and email made teletype obsolete. In fact, in web speak, use of capital letters became synonymous with angry shouting. However, it took the next 20 years or so for users of Weather Service products to phase out the last of the old equipment that would only recognize teletype.

Recent software upgrades to the computer system that forecasters use to produce weather predictions are allowing for the change to mixed-case letters.

"People are accustomed to reading forecasts in upper case letters and seeing mixed-case use might seem strange at first," said NWS meteorologist Art Thomas. "It seemed strange to me until I got used to it over the course of testing the new system, but now it seems so normal," he said.

Area forecast discussions, public information statements and regional weather summaries will be sent in mixed case format starting Wednesday. Severe weather warnings will transition this summer, with other forecasts and warnings transitioning to the new system through early next year.