When the first frosts occur and the light dustings of snow have whitened the mountains in the West, many begin to wonder what "Old Man Winter" will have in store for us in the coming months.

The National Weather Service (NWS) now makes winter outlooks months in advance and each half-month these outlooks are refined. The winter months for which the forecast is made are December, January and February. This is what is considered meteorological winter.

A winter outlook will not tell you how cold or how much snow or rain will fall. It will tell you the percent chance for above or below normal temperatures or above and below normal precipitation for the winter months.

When the NWS makes its' outlook it uses many climate models that take into account current weather patterns and also past years that have had similar patterns to the current one. They also rely heavily on the current state and forecast for the El Nino Southern Oscillation pattern, or ENSO (El Nino or La Nina). There are other global patterns that are considered as well.

Ultimately though, it is the human analysis that defines the winter outlook. Forecasters and climatologists use the computer models and outlooks as input for their final prognostication. The best and most accurate outlook is always the one closest to the verification time, so look for the winter outlook at the end of November. Most broadcast meteorologists or weathercasters will give the outlook during your local news.

Watching the weather from your closest WeatherBug weather station as well as checking Wild Weather in the Cool Links/Resources section of your WeatherBug can follow the changing of the seasons. Make sure you have the newest WeatherBug content by updating your Bug to version 3.0. Click here to upgrade!

Mark Hoekzema
WeatherBug Meteorologist

WeatherBug Welcomes WSBT

WeatherBug is proud to welcome our newest broadcast television partner WSBT-TV (CBS, Channel 22) in South Bend, Indiana. WSBT is one of the top-ranked news stations - winning the Associated Press Newscast of the Year award for their severe weather coverage last December. They successfully debuted their Storm Tracker WeatherNet/WeatherBug Program during their evening newscast on October 15. WSBT has already taken steps to advance and improve technology in South Bend schools by donating the high-tech WeatherNet Weather Station to three schools and offering a powerful educational tool called WeatherNet Classroom to every school. Way to go WSBT!

Now you can receive life-saving severe weather alerts on your phone! WeatherBug is proud to present WeatherBug ThunderCall, a state-of-the-art service that delivers severe weather warnings to your phone number of choice when they are issued by the National Weather Service. Click here for more information and to sign up today!

With over 5,500 business and school sites nationwide, the AWS WeatherNet Program - upon which WeatherBug is based - is the largest and fastest growing weather network in the world!

They are one of the newest businesses to join WeatherNet is beachvillage.net, a local Internet Service Provider on Saint George Island in the Florida panhandle. Beachvillage.net uses their WeatherNet Weather Station and Camera, which is located on the roof of their headquarters, to keep area businesses, residences and visitors up-to-date on the latest weather conditions and alerts as well as to generate sales leads.

William Eaton, owner of beachvillage.net comments, "After Tropical Storm Barry, we all realized how important our island weather is to many of our non-resident homeowners and local residents. Many local, community-minded businesses have contacted us interested in sponsorship. We are very happy with our weather center turned profit center."

Click on the link below to view "Live Beach Weather" (and ocean sounds!) on Beachvillage.net's interactive web site:
http://www.beachvillage.net/weather_center.html

For more information on how your business can utilize live, real-time weather information, contact Gary Milwit, Director of Commercial Sales at 1-800-544-4429 ext. 1621 or e-mail gmilwit@aws.com

AWS has transformed its award-winning educational software and curriculum into an integrated web-based application, featuring ready to use interactive lesson plans. All schools nationwide can now use this exciting educational tool to make teaching and learning easier, interactive and fun.

Imagine learning to calculate mean, median and mode using live weather data, automatically imbedded into your lesson from your school's WeatherNet Weather Station or the closest WeatherNet site to your school. Our advanced version of WeatherNet Classroom offers teachers the ability to create and publish their own interactive lessons online using our specially designed "Toolkit and e-Image Library" as well as access volumes of interactive lessons and activities.

AWS has created a customized web page for all schools nationwide. Take a look at your school's WeatherNet Classroom page by clicking on the link below and locating your school:
http://classroom.aws.com

To learn more, contact an Account Manager at 1-800-544-4429 or e-mail us at edsales@aws.com