WEATHER WATCHERING

WHADDYA MEAN YA NEVER HEARD OF THAT?
We had a good rain recently, and I was out in the back 40 reading the rain gauges as it was almost time to call the weather in. I have a number of gauges, hither and thither, scattered around the 2 acres closest to the house in the areas with the least number of trees. I am the southern-most weather watcher for our "local" TV station 65 miles north of here in our closest city this side of the Chesapeake Bay, WBOC in Salisbury, MD. My nephew was here and answered the phone for me while I was outside. He explained to the caller I was outside weather-watchering, I’d be back inside in a minute.
“Weather-watchering?” my caller asked.
“That works,” I said.
And so another new word is born. Weather-watchering… that is right up there with a sentence I overheard in the grocery store the other day… “Well, we were conversating about when his mama was gonna be funeralized…” and for the life of me I don’t remember what else was said but they were planning the food to take to the church for the “…’Ception after the cem’tary.” Ah, don’tcha love the English language – or whatever it is we speak?
Apparently weather-watchering originated the week before when I went up to Salisbury to see the new facilities – the new Weather-plex at our all new High Def TV station. But I hadn’t actually heard the word yet, myself.
Apparently the Eastern Shore is a tough place to forecast. Well, I knew that! Don't like the weather? Wait 5 minutes! I do, however, try to let them know when they are wrong!!!! We are on a long peninsula that is made of up the Eastern Shore of Virginia, the 2 easternmost counties of Virginia (that are often left off the state maps, thank you very much. We only count at tax collection time, the Pony Penning, and the Seafood Festival) but we're connected to Virginia Beach by the 17 mile long Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, with the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and the state of Delaware to the North. With the Bay on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other, our weather can get quite interesting. On any normal day, the temps can vary more than 10 degrees from Virginia to Dover or from the beach to any inland city. There can be 6 inches of snow in Dover and the palm trees are swaying in the breeze here – well, not really, but you know what I mean – or if the storm is coming from the south, we can have the 6 inches and the ground is barely covered in Ocean City.
We met in the Green room – this one was actually kind of green, too! Our chief meteorologist, Dennis Ketterer gave us the warm-up speech and a history of the station. Many of us remembered when WBOC was a radio station! My how it has grown! We got a tour of the old facilities and then the new studios and offices. Wow!
Danielle Vollmar, weather-person extraordinaire, and Dennis explained the workings of the set, even though Danielle was a bit under the weather. (Sorry, I could not help myself! But her voice was real "froggy.") I was getting tired from all the standing, so I sat on the edge of the set.
Dennis explained how the green screen worked and the monitors.
We all had a chance to point out our home towns on the green screen. In case you didn’t know it – the map you see at home is not visible on the green screen if you look at it on the set – so you have to be able to point to things by watching yourself on a TV screen monitor. It feels all backwards. Here is where I live! See a moniter behind me? There is one on each side, and one in front - that was the one i was using as my guide.
A group shot. I wonder what the average age is. I think only 2 people were under 50.

These pictures are courtesy of Terri, weather watcher from Sharptown. Now where was that on the map????
Oh, by the way, Punkin was on the weather news the other night curled up next to a couple of rain gauges. Ya missed it? He was being a rain watcherer. I was sure CBS would have picked up that shot by now!