Weather buffs: Jeff Masters and Bob Henson leave Wunderground, move to Yale CC.

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I just got the news that Bob Henson and Jeff Masters are moving, at the end of this month, their column in the Wunderground, now owned by the Weather Company, to a new one in the Yale Climate Connections (YCC) place in the Web. This is because the Weather Company is going to allocate the money and support given, so far, to their long-running column to “other weather and climate efforts.”

https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/06/jeff-masters-bob-henson-to-post-regularly-for-ycc/

In the current “Category 6” blog, still in Wunderground for a few more weeks, Bob Henson mentions that the new Web page at the YCC is still being “tweaked” to allow others to insert their comments, as they do at present in their Wunderground blog.

So, to all that have been contributing ideas, comments and information to their blog (including various timely weather maps and photos of the aftermath of severe weather at their locations), you may have to wait, before trying to include those in their new blog, until the new site is ready to receive them.

As to those who would like to express their various objections to their work disseminating scientific information on global change: please, note that this is not a thread in the “Rants” section, so if you wish to do that, you should consider starting your own thread in that forum.

This thread is for passing the news of their move to YCC to all those interested in continuing to follow what these two distinguished meteorologists write about the important things that are going on regionally, nationally and worldwide, and also in contributing their own comments and information to the new blog.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

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SueW, wavy, Myst, Nathan Parker

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Wow! Back when I used to use WU as an outlet for my Personal Weather Station, I remember seeing their blogs there. They also had community blogs, but I never used them since I blogged for their competitor (WeatherBug) instead, then I ended up taking over the blog as one of the admins (it was shut down during the sale of WeatherBug to GroundTruth, in which I and the other bloggers now blog at WeatherTogether.net).

It seems WU under IBM/The Weather Company, like WeatherBug under GroundTruth, has scaled back some of its community features and focusing more on using the front-end weather sites for monetization purposes. WU and IBM/The Weather Company focus on selling weather data (Disclaimer: I work for Earth Networks, a competitor of WU and IBM/The Weather Company), and WeatherBug and GroundTruth focus on location-based advertising.

I understand the corporate moves for long-term sustainability of both companies, although hobbyist weather enthusiasts miss the hobbyist and community features these sites used to offer. For those that want them, they simply have to band together and find or build sites as an outlet for them (WeatherTogether.net is one, WxForum.net is another good one I’ve contributed to).

Nathan Parker

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SueW, OscarCP, Myst

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WU without Jeff Masters? That’s like Apple without Steve Jobs!

I miss the original Weather Channel, with the carefully chosen local forecast music, when they paid jazz musician Trammell Starks to write them 40 some odd instrumental pieces (which never got named).  The era of Sharon Resultan, Cheryl Lemke, Vivian Brown, Dave Schwartz (RIP!), Heather Tesch… (wow, I remember the female ones a lot better, other than the ever lovably awkward Dave Schwartz.  Wonder why that would be?)

After NBC bought them and tried to make it into another channel that no longer has any connection to its initials (TLC having nothing to do with learning, MTV having nothing to do with music, and so on), with a whole bunch of reality shows that were only tangentially related to the weather (many only because they took place outside, where the weather is). There was that famous incident where they chose to run a movie rather than cut to actual weather-related news.

Now it’s this…

I must say I don’t really know much about the TV channel anymore, as I just stopped watching TV over a year ago.  It wasn’t a decision I made… I just didn’t bother doing it anymore.  If there is another El Reno or Tuscaloosa tornado broadcast live, I will probably put that on, but most of the channels that feed into TWC can also be livestreamed from their own site, so that works too.

By the way, those helicopter pilots in Oklahoma that fly around tornadoes to get the footage have got some guts.  I’d like to think I would do it too if I were in such a position, with my twin interests in aviation and weather, but… well… I don’t know.

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OscarCP, Nathan Parker

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Yea I miss the old weather channel too. Those boys in the copters? Guts maybe brains, not likely!

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Nathan Parker

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I get so aggravated – the WC app on my “smart”TV doesnt work 1/2 the time. I’d like to just uninstall but its soldered in like a bunch of othe garbage apps samsumg and Tyzen(?) use. Local websites are much better even at national stuff! I’ve emailed the ws developers and they say thank you but most of the time I just get the spinning spiral. Fios ethernet, 100mb up and down. should be enough ya think? People have no loyalty any longer. Coders have become the new million $ athletes who have played for 9 teams in 8 yrs because they get more $$.

Rant rant

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Nathan Parker

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I honestly like WeatherNation over TWC for weather coverage. They cover severe weather events well, offer good regular coverage of weather across the US, and their storm tracking system (Baron) is superior to what TWC uses (I pay for a web-based version of Baron to get access to that rich data). WeatherNation has done stuff with WeatherBug and Earth Networks in the past as well, and their on-air team was excellent.

Nathan Parker

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Bluetrix

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On the TWC Smart TV app, it’s likely using an older API that isn’t reliably handing data to it. TWC and WU have been moving to different APIs recently and phasing out some of the older and free API feeds. I never could figure out how to call TWC Support when I tested their app. You could see if there’s a WeatherBug app for it (there is for Fire TV). I don’t work for WeatherBug anymore (I still work for “the mother ship” that previously owned them), but we still power their data, so I know our API’s are working across all their currently supported apps. If you can find a WeatherNation app on there as well for the live stream, you may enjoy it. Some WeatherNation apps seem broken though, but mainly on non TV devices.

Nathan Parker

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I’ll check that out…but it doesn’t sound familiar on the limited apps on my TV- it’s 2 yrs or more old. I don’t exactly recall how I got to the developers info but It was a lengthy drill down process! I may have to do it again.Its not that big a deal, just annoying when I want to see the radar on my BR TV. Its an older Samsung. I purchased a newer LG about 6 months ago and I love it! It’s about paper thin..soon they will come in a can w/ a brush so you can paint it on the wall!! But, the smart part is a pin…too many choices, too few explanations! Maybe just not enough time to play with 1. Keeping win10 running… 2. Learning how to use this new iphone 11( I only know I was disgusted w/ android so now it’s learn about apple stuff from the get go 3. LG smart TV. 3. Swimming pool Chemistry is making me lose my hair(not that bad I guess) and 4. Caring for my lovely wife(stroke).

And it’s hurricane season in Fl! Looks to be a barn burner as they say! Oh ye and covid wahu round 2. What a day!

Peace Love and time for a Jack n H-O-H !

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Nathan Parker

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For years I have been getting from WU my daily whether report, the several next days’ forecast and the near-real-time maps with superimposed animated radar imagery of storms crossing the nearby surroundings of where I live, the wider region around it including mine and nearby states, as well as the nationwide picture. All for the price of a yearly donation. I wonder how much longer that will be possible if WU goes indeed fully commercial and entirely financed with advertising, which can be pretty heavy already (I donate around $100 annually and use my ad blocker.) The weather stations around here are perhaps most, if not  all, from the people that own them providing their data. Are they paid to do it? Will they be? And the first hurricane of the season just had its first encounter with this land a few days ago!

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Nathan Parker

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On the Apple TV box, you can run RadarScope which gives you “raw radar”. Been running it on mine. Runs really well.

In terms of WU, I don’t know about their advertising plans, although in some apps they did shut off the ad-free option and make those apps ad version only (I think they then killed those apps off).

With WeatherBug, there is no ad-free WeatherBug.com (we planned to offer it when we owned it, then we sold it to GroundTruth before we could roll it out. Since GroundTruth is big on advertising, I’m not expecting to see the option added). However, GroundTruth did keep our ad-free subscription offering in the WeatherBug iOS app when they took over developemtn (it’s about $2/year) AND they even resurrected our WeatherBug Elite app we once offered that you pay once and have it ad-free forever. So you could purchase WeatherBug Elite and have a pay once ad free weather app (that also uses commercial-grade weather data).

As one who has contributed weather data to WU in the past and who has also worked on both Personal Weather Stations and Commerical Weather Stations support, I will say no one is paid financially to contribute their weather data to any network. Occasionally the companies will give “perks” to those who send weather data (WU removed ads for users as long as they sent weather station data to them, when WeatherBug had a PWS program, we gave out ad-free licenses to our apps to those who sent weather data to us. That is gone now that WeatherBug doesn’t operate its own PWS network, and I don’t know what WU does on this front anymore). WU will likely never pay anyone to send them data, and most sites don’t even offer “perks” to those who send them their data. Some even charge annual fees for them to view their own data.

There are generally three sources of weather data out there that contribute to these apps and websites:

1. Goverment-owned weather stations: In the US, these are at airports owned by the NWS/NOAA. They are referred to as METARS and are what the bulk of most weather apps use.
2. Personal Weather Stations: These are owned by private individuals, generally in their own backyards. Most of the data on WU comes from these. Other sites that use PWS are the NWS CWOP program and NOAA MADIS, PWSWeather, WeatherCloud, WeatherLink.com, to name a few. Some PWS owners are careful about their weather station siting requirements, and some PWS websites quality control the data. However, PWS data can be hit and miss if the website doesn’t properly quality control the data since some websites allow anyone and everyone to throw a weather station up anywhere without checking the requirements.
3. Commercial Weather Stations: These are owned by schools, state/city government agencies, and businesses. The data in the WeatherBug app comes from these. Earth Networks is a primary example of an organization who has been working with commercial-grade weather stations for years. WeatherSTEM is another example of one who offers a service. The difference with commercial weather stations is when an organization comes to a company like Earth Networks to install a weather station, we send out a trained meteorologist field installer expert who properly sites their weather station according to specific guidelines, we use commercial-grade hardware components, and we have quality control teams of meteorologists who monitor the network and flag any stations showing sensor issues. We can also re-dispatch field techs for a site visit if something requires it (although for a site going offline, rebooting the indoor equipment generally resolves it). For the end user, getting access to commercial-grade weather data in their app is a cut above Personal Weather Stations since they are receiving their weather data from a trusted network that larger organizations depend on.

Nathan Parker

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