ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 27, 1997 TAG: 9701270025
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: A Cuppa Joe
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY
The winter storm warning was lifted at Elko, Nev., Thursday.
Lake Michigan waited for freezing rain. Seven-foot waves rolled through the Atlantic's Baltimore Canyon, and a shear line rumbled toward Saipan.
Some people use the Internet to look for potential lovers. Others dial up news of stocks or sports. But lots of people live for the weather reports.
A few clicks of the mouse bring numerous sources of local conditions and forecasts, foreign weather, hurricane reports, satellite pictures and color radar maps as good as the ones on TV.
"I think humans have a natural curiosity to know about the environment they live in," says John Wright, meteorologist-in-charge at the National Weather Service in Blacksburg.
You click, you link, you lose track of time. Soon you latch onto the Weather Underground and its service known as WeatherNet http://cirrus.sprl.umich.edu/wxnet or www.wunderground.com
That's when you enter weather heaven.
Based at the University of Michigan, begun in 1991, it gives out an average of 200,000 page views per day.
"I'm stunned," says Perry Samson, the professor of atmospheric science who started the service for use in Michigan's public schools, and watched it run away.
More richness and control
The information comes from the National Weather Service. Lots of people have it. It's the computer programming that makes the service sing. Especially when the elements act up.
At WeatherNet, hurricanes and snowstorms bring 1.5 million hits per day.
Who says people want good news?
Forget meteorology, the highly technical field, built on theoretical physics and math, that yields the forecasts.
"They don't care," Samson says. "We get people who appreciate not seeing just one little picture of a sun and a forecast saying 'Sunny,' but want a little more richness" - and control.
Then there is another thing, difficult to describe, that has to do with memory and feeling.
"We all go back where we used to live and see how the weather is doing," Wright says. "It's only natural."
When I call up Fort Worth and read about a Sunday evening snow, I remember what the flakes looked and felt like on a Sunday evening more than 25 years ago.
When Wright learns that rain is falling in the west Texas desert, he imagines the flowers blooming when the sun comes out.
"It smells fantastic," he says.
`Another place or time'
"That seems to be part of the virtual space we're creating out here," Samson says, "the possibility that you can transport yourself mentally to another place or time," remembering, and even tasting, that cup of espresso you had on a sunny afternoon in Paris.
Wright has lived in the Philippines, Germany, Alaska and a number of other states. To him, weather's appeal comes in the constantly changing variables that affect it and the variety of forms it can take.
Here, the topography varies from mountain to piedmont to valley, the phenomena from ice storms to blizzards to tornadoes - seven twisters in his office's 40-county coverage area in 1996 alone.
The joy of his job lies in alerting people to significant weather threats in time to protect themselves and their property, and in telling people when it's going to be a nice day.
For us amateurs, it's enough just to know.
What's your story? Call me at 981-3256, send e-mail to kenn@roanoke.infi.net or write to P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke 24010.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 linesby CNB