In article k.net,
Steven P. McNicoll wrote:

You still don't get it. AWOS isn't substituting for a human observer at
EVM. There was no human observer at EVM before the AWOS. If EVM didn't
have AWOS it would have no weather reporting at all.

No, you don't get it.
Weather observers were not just located at FSSs and airports. They were
also reported from other stations. For example, up until about five
years ago, there were a human observer reports from ECK. Is ECK an
airport? No. Is ECK a FSS? No. What is ECK? It's a VOR. You have to go
back and find a list of weather reporting stations from 20 years ago to
determine what other stations in the EVM area reported weather. Weather
reported from 100 miles or more distant from your destination is not
going to give you an accurate picture.
The guys and gals that worked in the local FSSs got to know local
conditions. They could look at an area forcast, get a big grin on their
faces and say to themselves, "Not here it isn't."
On my way back from Oshkosh this year I spoke with a briefer at Terre
Haute, and discussed local conditions between Fort Wayne and Muncie.
She had been around long enough and educated by the briefers that had
once been located in Eastern Indianna, and she knew that the weather in
how local conditions affected the area forecast. That kind of knowledge
is very rare in todays forecasting environment.
Computer graphics, ASOS and AWOS are helpful, but they do not fill in
the vast gaps of knowledge that were previously available to the
system.