The Nation - News from Feb. 19, 1988

The nation’s airlines and television stations used outdated wind and weather forecasts several times over the last week because of a computer failure at the National Weather Service, officials said. The glitch in the service’s main computer system triggered so many complaints that weather service employees “just gave up” counting the telephone calls, said William Bonner, director of the National Meteorological Center. “It’s probably the worst (system failure) since 1972,” when the large weather service computers failed, Bonner said.