I’ve always had a fascination with the weather, going back to Middle School when I would watch “The Today Show” and copy Willard Scott’s map, take it to school and put it up on the map in Home Room.
I got my first weather station in the 90’s and discovered how to get the information on to a web page along with a webcam. It was pretty cool for those days. Eventually it turned into “TriangleWeather.com”. It became pretty popular in the Raleigh/Durham, NC area. For any geeks out there, the software I used is called Weatherview32 and is still available after all these years.
I also had a longtime fascination with the Cleveland Time and Temperature phone systems. It was really interesting seeing the technology that was used to generate the information and have it play on the phone. It was called the “Audichron”. Here is a history of the system. I remember the numbers to this day… GR1-1212 (GR for Greenwich Mean Time) and WE1-1212 (WE for WEather).
I discovered guy that had written a computer program that did basically the same thing so I bought it and ran it for fun. It was pretty basic, but it worked and generated a lot of calls. I eventually found a TV Weatherman that had written a more advanced software program, so I invested in that system and ran it for several years in Goldsboro and New Bern, NC. It averaged 6000 calls a day and on certain days, like severe weather or Daylight Saving Time, it would jump to 12,000 calls. I actually had a couple of sponsors that helped pay for the phone lines. It was fun to operate. I still have it in a box somewhere…maybe someday I’ll fire it back up.