For many longtime Pittsburghers like Joanne Berman, 936-1212 was drummed into their brains long ago.
Some knew it more quaintly as WE6-1212.
The few seconds spent dialing a phone brought a weather forecast: temperatures, precipitation, likelihood of sunshine versus clouds. It's been a free and reliable service -- or as reliable as weather forecasting can be -- from the phone company to help plan decades of picnics.
But Wednesday, that service ends.
People can get the same information, supposedly just as quickly and easily, from the Internet or cable television or wireless telephones or their PDA doodads or any of many other 21st-century methods. That's the explanation from Verizon spokesman Lee Gierczynski.
"It's just a sign of the times," he said. "Technology changes people's lives and behavior."
Mr. Gierczynski had no information available on how frequently people dial the number today compared to yesteryear. There's at least one, however, who uses it most days. That's Ms. Berman, of Squirrel Hill, in her 70s, who lives without the Internet.
"To me, it's a lot simpler getting [weather] by phone than to turn on the television," she said over a conventional telephone this week. "I guess it's a habit."
For how long?
"Oh gosh, I don't know -- as long as it's been available," she said.
Mr. Gierczynski said Verizon and its predecessors, Bell Atlantic and Bell of Pennsylvania, have provided the service for at least four decades. At one time, before deregulation in 1983, the Federal Communications Commission required phone companies to provide a weather recording.
Since Sept. 1, the voice recording has told callers at the front of the forecast that the service will end after Sept. 30.
Verizon uses a vendor to obtain the forecasts and update them several times a day, but Mr. Gierczynski was uncertain of the cost. The same service is being eliminated at month's end in Philadelphia, Erie and York, he said, and is under review by Verizon in other states where it's provided.
"Cost was one factor, but the big factor was the way technology has changed, and now people have the availability to get this information from many different sources," the spokesman said. "It's not like that's the only place where they could find out what the weather's going to be like."
In fact, anyone can just as easily dial 412-262-2170 and get even more information than Verizon provided. It's a National Weather Service phone line with a weeklong forecast, and if you punch the right button, a real live meteorologist will even come on the line. It's just not etched the same way into the brains of people like Ms. Berman, who has now written it down.
"I think they'll be able to get the same essential information" without Verizon's recording, said Lee Hendricks, a weather service meteorologist who doesn't anticipate 412-262-2170 disappearing despite the agency's Web site with similar information.
"We're a government agency," he said. "We're here to help whoever."
By the way, he explained, Pittsburgh has seen a remarkable run of pleasant weather since the start of summer because of a lack of the usual strong flow of warm, humid air from the Gulf states. More of the same moderate conditions are expected in the foreseeable future.
And one other thing is expected to continue: the time and temperature line provided by Duquesne Light Co. for decades at 412-391-9500.
"It provides a service to the people who want to use it," said spokesman Joseph Vallarian. "Given the demographics of Allegheny County, maybe there are a lot of people who still want that service."
First Published: September 27, 2008, 4:00 a.m.
