The Weather Here

NWS - National Weather Service

2009-10-03T13:35:00.013-05:00

I see it has been way too long since I posted. I shall correct that right now. Today I had the opportunity to tour the Nation Weather Service's Chicago office. The office is actually now located in Romeoville, IL, a suburb of Chicago.

A little bit of history. The Weather Service implemented this office in 1870 right here in Chicago. It seems after some maritime incidents in the Great Lakes the Government was hoping they could nd chose Chicago to start it. The Burehelp by establishing a Weather Office aau moved from the Department of Agriculture to eventually under the jurisdiction of NOAA.

The tour consisted of the building and back grounds. The NWS is staffed 24 / 7. Total staff is 24 with at least 3 members on duty at all times. During weather emergencies, additional staff is bought in to man the extra computer work stations to keep ahaead of the storms.

This is the HAM radio station where outside observers and spotters can radio their info in directly to the NWS if needed.

Of course the big advantage of this facility is it's state of the art WSR-88D Doppler Radar. This baby stand 28' tall to the base of the dome and then the dome is at a 28 foot diameter. The radar looks out at 220 miles and can tilt from 1 degree to a 45 degree axis, with continuous 360 degree coverage.

Besides the on duty staff, in case of emergency, there are axillary units that can be called out to assist NWS in disseminating information.

2009-06-24T07:24:00.000-05:00

This is NOT the type of weather graphics you want to see.

Happy Holiday

2009-05-24T09:47:00.001-05:00

What a great Memorial Day weekend we have shaping up here. A little on the cool side but actually average for this time of the year.

Our thoughts go out to those fallen comrades who gave their life for our freedoms.

The Comics Are At It Again

2009-04-13T06:23:00.002-05:00

I am loving these "weather guys" sense of humor. At first glance I thought they were doing an Amber Alert, but:

My Bad

2009-03-29T08:32:00.002-05:00

Me and my big mouth told friends a families that the storm would bypass us ... huh! Woke up this morning to seeing this:

Niceeee Weather For A Change

2009-03-17T07:39:00.001-05:00

Past couple of 50's days were nice BUT today's forecast of 73 degrees. Now that's spring :) Probably hit 75 to 77 out here. We shall see.

This just is not right !!!!

2009-02-19T17:09:00.002-06:00

Old Man Winter!!

2009-01-09T06:49:00.002-06:00

Seems this January is going to be a typical Chicago winter. From the Chicago NWS office today:

"Old Man Winter appears to be keenly aware that we are approaching the heart of winter and is preparing to slap us with nearly all his might next week. Several fast moving disturbances will ride the jet stream across the region next week bringing periodic chances of lightly accumulating snows at about 36 hour intervals. Progressively colder air will move in behind each disturbance until the extremely cold air arrives Wednesday night into Thursday with temperatures well below zero and wind chills of at least 30 below zero possible by that time!"

Happy New Year

2009-01-02T06:47:00.000-06:00

From my family to yours.

Holidays

2008-12-24T06:29:00.002-06:00

Well ... it has been a fun year. Looks like we will have a White Christmas after all .. sort of ... more slush right now but lots of white stuff on the ground from yesterday and more coming this afternoon.

You folks have come to our site often and we appreciate it. We have become synonymous with Tinley Park in the search engines and that is good. We look forward to another fun year of weather, so form our family to yours, I wish you the Happiest, Holiest and Healthiest Holiday.
Jim

New Snow

2008-12-06T08:13:00.001-06:00

Woke up this morning to about 3" of fresh snow. Looks nice ... just hope it is gone before I have to leave this morning!

First Snow

2008-12-01T06:38:00.002-06:00

Measurable at least. Looks like about 2 inches of very wet a slushy snow on the ground. We lost power over night so I apologies for any loss of data. Check the webcam for the snow covered rooftops.

Off Topic - Radio Show

2008-10-04T00:09:00.004-05:00

Not really about weather but since I am proud of our efforts, I think I will let this blog post tell all about it!

Here is an article published locally telling all about it!

Construction Is Not Always Visible
Our Generation Radio To Debut

You won't hear saws cutting, trucks rumbling or jackhammers hammering, but major construction is going on in Tinley Park. If measured in key clicks and megabytes of code the undertaking is huge. Local Internet Radio Disk Jockeys, ArJohn and JimmyB (The AnJ Show) have gone from station to station looking for a home. Veteran personalities on the Internet (I [ArJohn] began in 1998, JimmyB was a frequent guest and popular addition to the show) radio scene. In the last year the two irreverent, wacky and outspoken distributors of music, comedy and comment just could not find a fit. Tied with the poor economic conditions, artistic freedom issues and just plain chemistry, they worked and left three stations. Along with them were a nucleus of on-air, production, web design and management people that were looking for more. While I (ArJohn) have little to do with the construction of the new station, JimmyB, Dick Wrigley and Jitar have been putting in plenty of hours, most likely sweat and perhaps even blood and tears.
What exactly are we building? Well Internet radio is certainly not new. As I mentioned earlier I have been doing this since 1998. What is new a different is our veering away from trying to be all things for everyone and align with the people we know best; the people who grew up with the radio we know, from the Top Forty DJ to the beginnings of chatter and downright irreverence of the morning and overnight shows of the past. Get ready world because Our Generation Radio (OGR) is coming. Tune in today by visiting us at www.ourgenerationradio.com.
When we say the 50's, 60's and 70's are ages not decades, we mean these are the ages of the Baby Boomers. While many Internet Radio stations today really give us little more than Ipods you can't carry, OGR has the sounds we grew up with and new music from the rock stars we know. There is a whole segment of the industry that knows the Boomers and even our own record label (More on that for you lucky listeners). So while you'll hear oldies – you will also be introduced to music that appeals to us who have grown through the ages and still like music. All this given to you by real live DJs not just music rolling by. Give us a visit and find out more!!!
Actual date we come on air is soon, very soon but not yet specific. Stop by www.ourgenerationradio.com and find out more!!

Neat Stuff Added

2008-09-20T07:45:00.002-05:00

Been busy over the past couple days. Added in a Web cam Page which has the 24 hour video at the top from our friends at Weather Underground. This video display the web cam shots for the last 24 hours starting at present time. Below that you can peruse the last 1000 shots of the weather / web cam.

A NWS Weather Discussion Page has also been added. This page is a drop down from the weather forecast tab on the menu bar. This is a technical posting of the weather for the day and is posted at random times throughout the day. If you want to learn about weather a little more, these discussions are a good place to start. You need to use your imagination to interpet their abbreviations :).

I Can't Swim!!!

2008-09-14T08:12:00.002-05:00

Finished off yetserday (Saturday) with 6.142 inches of this wet stuf and at 8:13AM Sunday we have another .98 inches .... and it is till coming down.

So far all the "dikes" are holding with some street closings around town. I hope we all stay dry.

In A Word ... WETTTTT

2008-09-13T07:25:00.003-05:00

Well the old rain gauge has measured 4.36 inches of rain as of 7AM this date. Looks like more is coming. Thank goodness the kayak is in the garage.

Pretty amazing when a storm way down in Texas affects wetaher her in the Midwest. Check our storm report page here for more info.

New Site

2008-08-13T19:08:00.003-05:00

Well if you haven't noticed, we have a new site layout. These are templates from our friends from various sites in the weather community. Credit is given in the about page and weather related links.

The first thing you should notice is our new menu layout. We are using "flyout" which will slide out when there are more items under a heading. This will be indicated by the triangle next to the heading. Be sure and check out these menu items as there are many new pages. My favorite is the Storm report, found in the Forecast & Advisories heading. Takes awhile to load but well worth it. I was also able to bring back the Graphic Story page under same heading also.

If you have a cell phone that gets internet access, click on the link at the bottom of each page to see what our WAP weather page looks like. You can also just enter www.willcookweather.com/wap/ on your phone's browser.

All in all I am very proud of this new look and hope you find it helpful. The front page takes a little while to load the first time around but has so much info ... patience is paid off.

Nasty Weather!!!!

2008-08-05T07:15:00.004-05:00

Well I hope all you folks are well. We had some very nasty weather come through here last night and early this morning. I was just going through the Storm Report for 08/04/08 for this area and we had over 101 reports for all counties here.

Many trees down, flooded streets and high winds of 65 to 70 MPH reported. This report can be seen on the new Beta Weather site at http://willcookweather.com/wxindex.php.

Little more schedule to come in yet and then we should be clear and nice weather for ret of the week.

Apologizes

2008-07-20T12:10:00.003-05:00

I just got off my roof and fixed the wind vane on my weather station. It seems it had been stuck for many weeks and bugged me.

I apologize for the miss information it has been reporting but all is well as of this date. I hope it did not inconvenience anyone.

For those of you with Davis Weather Monitor II, there is a rubber drip ring over the rotating cup. This boot had cocked to one side and jammed the rotation of the vane. Once lifted it starting spinning freely. I did clean and lubricate to hopefully eliminate future problems.

Poetic NWS?

2008-07-10T07:24:00.002-05:00

Had to post this. Seems our weather bureau is into music and lyrics:
..... back of my neck getting dirty gritty.

Perfection

2008-07-06T23:15:00.001-05:00

Well we had an absolutely perfect Independence Day weekend here. I hope the rest of you all had the same.

New Website ... Sooooon!

2008-07-01T17:38:00.003-05:00

Working on a major update for this website. Sneak peek here. Remember .. still in beta :)

MesoMap

2008-06-26T17:06:00.002-05:00

Just added a new page. This is a mesomap of the Midwestern states. There is a definition of what a mesomap is on the page and it can be accessed to the left and click on the mesomap menu link.

Beautiful

2008-06-19T18:50:00.002-05:00

Just had to post. Sitting on my patio, surfing the web in 78 degree weather at 6:51PM ..... loving it!

Hot Hot Hot

2008-06-03T07:40:00.001-05:00

Well June is starting off as .... June! It has been very humid and warm these last few days. Still more to come.