During my freshman year of high school, I created “Charlie’s Weather Forecasts,” my very own Facebook weather forecasting group. Every weekday, I would provide a short forecast and explain various aspects of the weather as they pertained to our current meteorological situation. Below is my first-ever weather forecast!
Later in 2009, I moved my forecasts to charliesweatherforecasts.blogspot.com and started a separate Charlie’s Weather Forecasts Facebook Page. Here, I could not only have more extended writeups and forecasts but I could include pictures in the posts and links/other information on the sides. Although I started writing out forecasts just like I had on Facebook, I gradually shifted towards writing about weather and science topics in general.
But even the blog had limitations. Facebook was great for collaborating and talking about the weather with my classmates, but it was harder to spark similar conversations on the blog. Additionally, going through old posts was a cumbersome process – I had hundreds of posts and tons of information that I had written, but with each new post, previous posts seemed to slip into the oblivion. So in late April 2016, almost 8 years after I started my Facebook blog, I started my own website using WordPress.
For the longest time, I was almost certain I was going to name this site “Charlie’s Weather Forecasts” or “Charlie’s Weather,” but I really wanted to emphasize that this is a community website, so after many sleepless nights, I came up “WeatherTogether.” The .com was selling for several thousand bucks, but the .net was ten bucks, and the rest is history.
During October 2016, I made the step to switch WeatherTogether to a WordPress “Multisite Network,” which allows anybody to actually make their own weather blog, just like the one I had on Google Blogger. This configuration combines the strengths of individual blogs and a larger, community site: users have the tools to create their own, unique weather website while contributing to an exciting new weather network, helping them gain more readers and meet new meteorologists around the world.
I had always wanted to make some weather model charts, so I taught myself Grads, Python, and Bash scripting and finally got some charts up in June 2017 after spending a few hours coding and a few months troubleshooting. This project is under development… you’ll see more from us in the future.
In September 2017, we merged with WeatherQuack.com under the WeatherTogether name, gaining several new bloggers and a wealth of IT experience from Nathan Parker, the founder of WeatherQuack. We now have 10 bloggers from all across the U.S. and are adding more at an accelerating pace!
If you are interested in joining WeatherTogether, click here to register. If you have already registered and are interested in making a weather blog, you can create a site here (you’ll need to log in first).
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Charlie