WEB OFFERS A LOOK AT WEATHER

Is it going to snow? Is it going to sleet? Is it going to rain?

This time of year, the weather certainly dominates the conversation -- especially if the forecast is gloomy.

But the Internet can help give you a better idea of what the weather is like in your neck of the woods. And these Internet weather sites are available around the clock.

www.weather.com

My favorite weather site is the one brought to you by The Weather Channel. Since all they do is weather, I figure they're pretty good at it.

As they're quick to tell you, this site is consistently rated in the top five for news, entertainment and information. This Web site includes current conditions and forecasts for more than 1,700 cities worldwide -- including Cape Girardeau. The forecasts also include local and regional radar.

They're forecasting a chance of snow Wednesday. The local conditions include the temperature, wind, dewpoint, relative humidity, visibility, barometer, sunrise and sunset.

Yes, weather is serious stuff, but these guys can also have some fun. If you click on "Weather and ... holidays," you can check out such features as North Pole conditions, white Christmas historical probability, live holiday cam and 360 degree images from inside FAO Schwartz.

By the way, our historical probability of a white Christmas is less than 25 percent.

I also enjoyed the link on schoolday weather. Sure, you can see the schoolday forecasts, but you can also learn the hows and whys and weather, including lesson guides and teacher plans.

There's also specific links for weather affecting driving, golf, gardening, aviation and much more.

www.weatherplanner.com

This is an interesting site. It boasts a great way to pick the date for a wedding, trip or special events. The forecasts are supposedly reliable for up to a year in advance.

This planning tool has been used for more than 60 years by the government, film industry and companies like Kmart, Wal-Mart and Sears.

But just how accurate are these guys? The weather is always changing.

Weatherplanner says they use the "wedding weekend" test, which compares the best springtime weekends for a wedding as predicted by the site in several cities with the actual weather that occurred.

Recent results showed Weatherplanner's predictions to be correct 77 percent of the time in 1998, and 83 percent in 1999 and 2000. That's better than a 50-50 coin toss.

This Sunday, they're predicting snow or snow showers for Cape Girardeau. I find the same forecast for my birthday next year, which will be on Thanksgiving Day.

New this year is a segment called "season tickets," which can predict the weather for your favorite sporting events weeks to months in advance.

The site points out they differ from the farmer's almanacs because Weatherplanner is more site specific. They point out most farmer's almanacs are very general in their descriptions of the weather.

www.intellicast.com

Another good weather Web site is brought to you by Intellicast, which boasts of bringing you "weather for active lives." You can check out your local weather, U.S. Radar, U.S. Satellite, U.S. Nexrad, U.S. Forecasts or lifestyle weather for golfing, skiing, travel or many other activities.

New features this year include Holiday 2000 weather, Football Forecasts and International Travel. You can also check out such seasonal sites as NASCAR and KITEcasts. The latter is one of my favorites in the spring.

You might want to keep this site bookmarked for Christmas Eve. You can watch Santa's Journey around the world from Intellicast. Hey, those satellites are good for more than just forecasting the weather.

This site also agrees that our probability of a white Christmas is between 2 and 25 percent. Although, an interesting article points out that colder temperatures across the country in the coming weeks may make a white Christmas more of a reality for many locales.

They, too, list current conditions for Cape Girardeau, including temperature, skies, humidity, winds, sunrise, sunset and a four-day forecast.

You can also click over to current airport delays and potential travel delay forecasts.

The next site from the National Weather Service is a bit technical, but it's also very interesting.

weather.gov

This gives you a direct link into the government's weather satellites. Of course, there are no explanations, but you can see the maps. More than 1 billion visitors have come to this Web site since 1997. And they boast that more than 10,000 Web sites from the Internet directly link into this system.

From this main page, you can link into graphics for high-speed or mid-speed Internet connections or the text-version of the pages. You can also jump to the National Weather Service homepages, which would be handy.

My final stop of the day is to Landings.com, a great site for aviators that also includes comprehensive weather information for anybody.

www.landings.com/_landings/pages/weather.html

This site tells me that more than 24.7 million visitors have come to the hub of this Web site. You can also find links to all kinds of weather maps and satellite images.

You can find hundreds of weathers links, including the specific airports that you may be visiting. If you jump over to the main page, you can track the timeliness of specific planes or even their maintenance records.

If the forecasts are any indication, bundle up over the next few days.

What's your favorite weather site? E-mail me at jonia@sehosp.org

See you in Cyberspace.

Joni Adams is the Webmaster at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau, www.southeastmissourihospital.com