WXnation Wire: Weather Blog, WX & Space News
                               SINCE FEB. 2003
WX -- Telegraph abbreviation for weather often used with Morse code
The Wire (wīr') -- Name once given to the telegraph

Want to know what the abbreviations used by the National Weather Service stand for? The answers are in this article: Weather Eye: Weathering terms used by the weather service and the full list is here.

Chicago: Slight Risk For Severe Weather Monday

NBC News’ Stone Phillips asks: Can humility, faith be good for business?

Finally, this “leap day” was another moving day for me. Perhaps because of Mel Gibson’s movie, at least 35% more people were at the Mass I went to at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. Bad for traffic after Mass, but good for the spirit. And this evening, my sister Joanne called and we talked at length about the incredible power surrounding of “The Passion of The Christ,” which appears to be clocking in at nearly $118 million — the second-biggest 5-day movie opening and second-biggest R-rated movie opening ever. I also had a heart-to-heart conversation with my parents. But enough about me, in this entry anyway… More on my experience with the movie below:

At 12:15 this afternoon, the lights in a Grapevine, Texas, theater went down, and I witnessed with my wife the most moving movie I have ever seen. The theater was packed for Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of The Christ” , yet there wasn’t a sound near the end of the movie just before the final scene. Then, applause when the credits began to roll — yet no one was talking as we all filed out. This movie — more about God’s love than violence, I feel — was difficult to watch. But we walked away with a deeper love for what Christ did for us. In my opinion, it was an amazingly produced and directed movie about the most important part of my life. As I entered the lobby of the theater, I realized the song “Clocks” by Coldplay was playing over the sound system when I heard their words, “No, nothing else compares…” repeated. And I thought, how true this is. There have been many amazing events in our lifetime alone, but I feel that nothing else compares to Christ’s passion nearly 2000 years ago. More on the life, passion, and resurrection of Jesus can be found at New Advent, and more on the Gibson’s movie can be found at Google News.

XM satellite radio to air traffic and weather in Washington D.C. Details

The hits keep comin’ for The Weather Channel’s Web site: weather.com Has Record-Setting January with 27 million visitors

Many in the Dallas-Fort Worth area may be turning to TWC and weather.com on Sunday as severe storms and heavy rain are possible. My daytime job is at KXAS-TV, which boasts the country’s only 1,000,000 watt radar combined with a high-resolution display, and that radar is now streaming here for those on Broadband connections and with Windows Media Player. My (other) favorite radar for north Texas is the National Weather Service short-range loop. Plenty of other radar and webcam images are in the Dallas-Fort Worth page.

Biggest snowstorm in 100 years to hit the Rock Hill, SC area earlier this week. Details here.

And finally, I’ve just finished adding this small navigation button to all of the WXnation.com city pages:

The navigation image, located next to the city name at the top of the page, allows you to quickly visit the nearest city to the north, south, west or east. I hope you find it to be a useful addition…

From WCNC-TV in Charlotte, NC: SKYMAX Weather Alert: STORM OF THE CENTURY

Here are some articles about weather and the classroom this morning: Texas School District Cleans Up After Wicked Weather Damages School | Computers help battle weather | NE Georgia: Area dons 2-inch blanket | N Georgia: Despite school closings, winter weather brings few hassles for east metro area

California storm: “On a scale from one to 10, with 10 being the biggest storm of the season, this is an eight or nine.” Details here.

WXnation.com entered its third year online yesterday. The story behind this site’s birth on Feb. 26, 2002, can be found here. Snapshots are also available of the early site from Feb. 27, 2002 and a complete archived site from Mar. 4, 2002.

Winter storm in GA, SC and NC: Winter in Raleigh … Story here | Snow makes metro Atlanta roads treacherous, closes schools | Winter weather across most of northern half of South Carolina and Georgia, North Carolina also being hit with winter weather

Check out this great radar image of the area showing snow/wintry mix from Wundrground. Get hundreds of weather radar and webcam links from the Carolinas and Georgia in the WXnation.com city map or in the menu to the right.

Cash For ‘Casts: Raleigh company paid for accurate weather forecasts.

Rain, Wind, Snow Batter South: Power Outages Hit Northern California. See a flooding slideshow here

As I have found working at a local TV station’s Web site, weather continues to make a giant dent in Internet traffic: weather.com(R) Reigns as the Most Popular News and Information Site on the Web

Snowstorm closes schools, major highways in New Mexico

S. Texas weather could turn ugly

Foul Weather Thins Crowds For Climax Of Mardi Gras

Woman Saved Near Brink Of Niagara Falls. Note from visitor Stephen Swanson: This station has good video in broadband. Click on the daybreak newscast
and slide it over to 4 minutes. Second story from WGRZ-TV

Ash Wednesday is here, as is the 40 days of Lent, and of course, the release of the movie The Passion of The Christ. (More on the movie is here.) Matt Drudge said in his Sunday night radio show that many will be going to Midnight Mass when the movie opens early Wednesday, and I am sure many are now being moved by Mel Gibson’s film. I have yet to see it, and plan to in the coming week. Greater than a No. 1 Box Office finish, my biggest hope is that, beyond the hype and controversy, it gives movie-goers something that I feel the Bible and prayer do very well: fill people with a loving, humble and thankful heart toward how much Jesus Christ suffered for each of us before the resurrection.

Morocco Hit by Powerful Earthquake

Calif. Rainstorm Delays Flights, Triggers Car Crashes, Mudslides

Astronomy Picture of the Day: X-Rays Indicate Star Ripped Up by Black Hole. Direct link to big picture here

The southwest may see plenty of rain today, along with parts of Texas. A couple of days of rain and thunderstorms begins this morning in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. My favorite radar for DFW is the National Weather Service’s short range loop.

Check the National page for U.S. radars, and your closest city at WXnation.com’s homepage.

You may have noticed many changes to the WXnation.com site over the past five weeks. The wave of improvements (I hope) began on Jan. 20, when the background went from black to an off-white. A friend of mine, Michael Tucker, said he thought he’d ended up on the wrong Web site when he visited last week…

Then on Feb. 14, the site completed its move to a new Web host that I am very impressed with, HostMySite.com. Hopefully the transition was smooth for all users.

On Feb. 18, this weblog got an upgrade and new look.

Finally, on Feb. 19, a smaller URL became active, allowing a simpler way to access the site: wxna.com, which takes you to wxnation.com. (Additionally, wxna.com/weatherblogs/wire takes you to this log, and wxna.com/boston to Boston, etc.) It’s not a huge difference, but it makes it easier if typing the URL into a phone or PDA. (The page for those is wxna.com/weatherblogs/wireless — or, if your phone needs the actual URL like my Sprint PCS phone — use wxnation.com/wireless).

It is my hope that these changes have improved the site for you as WXnation.com heads into its third year on the Internet on Thursday.

Listen to live audio streams of a radio storm on Jupiter between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. ET Monday morning. The links are on SpaceWeather.com. The sounds come directly from a 20 MHz radio antenna at the University of Florida Radio Observatory.

New weather station project for New Jersey delayed by lack of funds.

NOAA Releases Spring Outlook. Details here.

Astronomy Picture of the Day: As the galaxy turns

Some bad weather news: 2 die in dust storms in West Texas

SpaceWeather.com explains why autumn and spring are better for viewing auroras