My fascination with weather began when I was very young. My parents would say too young. I cannot exactly pinpoint what spurred this fascination. Maybe it was the excitement of an impending snowstorm (and the possibility of a day off from school). Maybe it was the ominous look of a summer sky immediately preceding a severe thunderstorm. Maybe it was the possibility of a tropical system impacting our area. Or maybe it was the fact that I would draw my own weather maps on the chalkboard in the basement of my childhood home and pretend to predict the weather. Nevertheless, this fascination quickly became more like an addiction.

It was the summer of 1988, a particularly hot one as I recall. The thermometer broke the 100 degree mark five times that year and I remember never experiencing air temperatures so hot. Baseball practices at the Lansdale Little League complex were oppressive and unbearable. However, the most memorable event for me that summer actually was not the weather, or baseball for that matter, but the fact that my parents decided to purchase cable television. No longer would I only get my daily dose of weather from the evening news but I could now watch and learn about the weather 24 /7 via the fairly new TV station—The Weather Channel. The Tropical Update at fifty-two past the hour, the extended forecast at twenty past the hour, the local on the eights, or breaking weather stories at the top and bottom of the hour were now quickly changing a fascination I had into an all out addiction.

The introduction of cable television into our household was supposed create more choices for TV viewing but for me it essentially narrowed it down to one channel—one that I still view on a regular basis today. My addiction to the world of weather today has become an all out passion. Deep down inside I am still that young boy who gets excited by snowstorms, thunderstorms, and tropical systems. But now my excitement is coupled with a genuine interest in understanding how the physics of our atmosphere create the weather we experience on a daily basis. The days of me getting all my weather fixes from one TV station have been replaced by the many different websites, blogs, and social media outlets I follow. The science of meteorology is amazing to me and I hope to share some of that knowledge and passion with you through this column.

Next week watch out for my preliminary look at the upcoming winter and my prediction on how many snow days we will have. Until next time, think positive…think weather!