FAA should have never taken over any of this, it is a conflict of interest. If they control the weather observations they can put out whatever they want which would keep planes flying in adverse weather. It is always a concern about the positions getting eliminated but thankfully congress on both sides realizes the importance of contract weather observers and we are a small portion of the FAA budget to begin with. The value of information we produce is very high for the cost.
As for snow measuring, I would love to do it here at DTW but as you all have seen from posts in the past, my office is on top of the terminal and 70 feet in the air. It is impossible to measure snow up here with no protected grass. We had done it in the past before we moved into the Evans (North) terminal in 2010.