This post from Treadly about weather nerds got me to thinking. Treadly makes note of a handful of bike commuters who also seem to have an extreme interest in weather.
I have a handful of weather blogs in my blogroll, including meteorologist Jeff Masters’ excellent WunderBlog over at the Weather Underground. I was a big user and fan of the Weather Underground when it was just a menu driven telnet interface and (later) a gopher server at the University of Michigan run by PhD candidate Jeff Masters. While I don’t own an Internet connected weather station (mostly because all of my time and money is spent on bike stuff), I geek out over the ones I know about. I’m one of those guys who reads weather maps and tracks rainfall and sunny days for the year.
Bike commuters obviously need to be more aware of the weather than those who are constantly sheltered. I know a few readers of and contributors to CBB log the optimum riding clothing for their commute based on the weather conditions. I know others who watch the local weather radar during storms to find gaps through which they can ride their bikes to work or home relatively rain free.
How about you? Do you have a healthy interest in your local weather and climate? Can you name the types of clouds and recite the average highs and lows for each season in your location? Can you watch the western sky and accurately predict a coming storm?