First Post Of The Season

Since I'm sure people will be coming over here due to the insanely bad "commercial" I posted, I guess it's probably time to make a post discussing what I will be doing RE: the blog for the 2010-11 school year. As most of you know, I have graduated from LOHS and, as some of you know, I am now a freshman at the University of Oklahoma pursuing a degree in meteorology. However, I would like to continue to gain experience in meteorology this year, and since all I am taking this year in school are gen-ed and basic meteorology courses, I have decided that it would be a good idea to keep myself "sharp" in meteorology by continuing to forecast snow amounts and snow days for the Lake Orion area. In addition, I had a few people still at LOHS tell me they would really appreciate it if I continued to predict snow days this year. Therefore, like I said after last winter was over, I will continue the blog this year, although this will most likely be the last year of the blog, as at some point I will have to move on from being a Lake Orion SuperSenior (I know, I know, it's sad).

I have two goals for the blog this year, one for accuracy and one for popularity. RE: Accuracy, I got every prediction right last year, so I would like to do that this year. RE: Popularity, I got ~ 10,000 views during February last year. Since the blog will run approximately 5 months (November thru March), I would like to get 50,000 views this year.

The approximate posting guidelines will be as follows: I almost certainly will not bother with posting about possible storms that are still farther than 7 days out, due to the fact that details change so much in the long range timeframe. Between 4-7 days out, I will usually post a brief 1-3 paragraph summary about possible storms. This will just be a simple overview, not very in-depth, perhaps with a few graphics. Between 0-3 days out, I will usually post a more in-depth discussion about possible storms, almost always with graphics, and with a snow day grade on the scale of A, B, C, D, E. In addition, once we get within ~48 hours of the storm, I will start posting maps with my forecasted snow totals for SE Michigan. In my final post before a storm hits, I will make a Yes/No prediction as to whether Lake Orion will get a snow day.

In addition to what I discuss in my posts, readers of this blog are welcome to use the comments section to post questions/comments. I moderate all comments because spammers have found out about this blog, but I will eventually check your comments and answer your questions.

Finally, if you would like to make a recommendation for additional things that I could include in this blog, feel free to notify me in some way. I have already received a request to do video forecasts, and will likely do a few of those during the season.

As always, thanks for reading.

-John Schlenner