Weather Picture Of The Day is a Website that I started back in the year 2000 as a way to provide interesting weather content for the public. Digital Photography was becoming of age and many people had cameras and could capture great snapshots.
Unfortunately, it became a victim of its own success. It took huge amounts of bandwidth to keep running, plus it required quite a bit of daily support. All this impacted my main business, www.weathershop.com negatively even though it did generate some sales due to the meager advertising we placed on it for weather stations and weather gadgets. So, rather than continue to let it impact our business bandwidth and support requirements, I opted to shut it down in 2004 until a better solution could be found.
Enter WordPress and the blog engine. This website, www.wattsupwiththat.com has become a great success and has no impact on my business bandwidth. So I’ve decided to try Weather Picture Of The Day on wordpress.com to see how it goes.
I know there is an interest, I know that digital cameras abound, so give us your best shot and let us share it with the world! See the Submit Photo page.
I’ll be making additions to the website as we go along, and may have some contests and prizes coming in the future. We also hope to add more to our free screen saver and to offer specialized RSS and photo feeds to allow inclusion of free WPOTD content into other weather websites.
In the meantime, help spread the word, tell a friend!
– Anthony
I have a weather related question:
What causes early evenings to suddenly get breezy for a couple of hours on a warm, sunny summer days? The whole day there’s no wind, and suddenly it picks up, and then dies off just after sunset.
For example yesterday, just after I had thrown the steaks on the grill, the wind picked up for a couple of hours. By 9 p.m. the wind stopped. I’ve noticed this often happens on warm sunny summer days.
REPLY: Local terrian may be a contributor. Not knowing where you are I can’t say.
Here’s an entertaining piece of satire (in German). Someone absolutely has to make an English version : “Confess your Eco-Sins”
http://www.oekologismus.de/?p=984#comment-34226
Pierre: As a long time competitor in target shooting, when the range officer says “Is the line ready”, the wind blows much harder. I can’t indentify cause & effect, but many years of experience bear this out. Washing your car doesn’t really make it rain, but I have learned to minimise that risk as well. Don’t have much experience with the grill (far too windy here), could be similar.
Anthony: A great idea, reborn. I’ll keep the camera handy.
Too bad there isn’t a convenient solution for bittorrent-like bandwidth sharing of broadcasting of small non-time-sensitive content. Sure, there are broadcatching tools with RSS and bittorrent, but those aren’t convenient enough for most people to use when checking today’s weather picture or today’s comic strips.
I’m amazed no one has commented on the content of that picture. How soon we forget. Anything else I want to write would be for another blog.
Pierre: It is well known in amateur astronomy circles that the arrival of a new telescope brings a week of rain and clouds.
It does so regardless of the phase of the PDO, AMO, ENSO, and the Moon.
-Ric
Pierre: Are you near a large body of water? If so, it’s likely a sea breeze.
jeez…I hear ya!…It isn’t about the weather is it?
Pierre, it might be what is called the “terminator wind”. Part of the earth is in light, and part in darkness. The darkness is colder, which makes the air heavier. The part where the sun hits is warmer, and the air is lighter.
Accordingly, a wind blows across the terminator (the line between light and darkness) due to the difference in density between the two areas.
w.