It's one of the big concerns in meteorology and part of the on-going fight between the government/academic and commercial groups in meteorology. The latter think, as a whole, that the government and academic institutions should cease to provide forecasts and information, leaving everything to the commerical, for-profit sector. This would lead to academia developing tools for companies and the government essentially becoming a data source and nothing more...as well as to increased costs for weather forecasts for the general public. Obviously, the government/academic groups disagree with that. Those on the commercial end of things may not have an extreme a viewpoint as presented here, but it's alnog those lines.

As such though, it does not surprise me that Accuweather - one of the big proponents of the change - is more inclined to present their own forecast rather than the NHCs. If anything, they are good businessmen; weathermen, though, that's another story. The NHC official is the track everyone should go off of and, since they are set up as THE authority, work should be done cooperatively to improve these forecasts. It's fine to note the cone of uncertainty, some of the players that may cause the storm to do this, that, or the other...but don't present your own forecast as perhaps being the official one.

Just a pet peeve of mine.