How Did You Happen Upon This Board and When

[40/70 Benchmark]

I remember quite vividly the day that the Red Sox' 2006 campaign unofficially and unceremoniously came to end; a promising 1st half of the season was negated and then some by a post all-star portion of the season that could be best characterized as a long, arduous and ultimately unsuccessful battle of attrition, the likes of which I had never seen before or again until last season's unprecedented band-aid epidemic eclipsed it. The scene was Fenway Park, and the foe was a very familiar one, clad in illustrious, relentless and unforegiving pinstripes .

Weather had manipulated the schedule in such a manner that the Red Sox and their fans had one final and unusually long 5-game home series remaining against their arch rivals, and the hope was that they could seize this opportunity to mount in improbable charge in the AL East by reducing the 5-6 game difference (via head-to-head victories) to a more manageable defecit as the season entered it's final act; however I realized that the season was over after the Sox had dropped the first 3 and the fourth game had grown out of hand. I lamented for a few moments, then decided to seek an oasis of serenity in a sea of dissapointment in the form the one constant throughout my life....."How much for Wilmington this winter; after all, it's almost fall", I thought, as I embarked on one of the most fateful google searches of my life.

After happening upon the blogs of some eccentric, "Farmer's Almanac" type hacks, who even before being enriched by Eastern, I was able to discern as what I would later learn to be " s", I discovered Eastern by way of a key word that I am remiss that I cannot recall. I lurked for a month, joined on September 30, 2006 and the rest is histroy.....all joking aside, my life was altered for the better forever, as not only was my meteorological knowledge base expanded upon exponentially, but I was introduced to what I have grown to view as exceprional social network.....replete with a great bunch of folks harboring the same bizarre fetish that I do.

In conclusion, perhaps it was divine intervention, but at the very least it was certainly highly appropriate that it was weather that helped to force that fateful series into existense, and it was weather that consoled me by means of leading me to this site....formerly Easternuswx and now Americanwx.

How did you fund your way here.....some probably have some cool stories.

Anyway, I'm sure Kev will het me with 4 buns for this....Christ.

[weatherwiz]

Pretty sweet story!

My way here was rather boring lol. Was brought to my attention to a few people while I was up at LSC but I didn't sign up right away than when I posted on this facebook group J/KG Jaine also was in the group and mentioned to me about eastern so I finally decided to sign up lol.

Like you though this place has definitely improved me for the better, I gained an absolute incredible amount of meteorological knowledge and continue to do so. I've also met some great people, developed some great friendships and have had some of the best times of my life at g2g and conferences.

[skierinvermont]

I've been obsessed with snow since as long as I can remember so I have probably been destined to find this weenie paradise my entire life.

At first my obsession was satisfied by gluing myself to the weather channel all winter since about 3rd grade. I remember anxiously waiting for Kocin to come on every half hour with his snowfall maps. Little did I know that his book would one day become my bible. Then once I discovered the wonders of the internet I started using weather.com. I remember printing out a daily forecast for the entire summer wondering how they could predict that far in advance. I kept track for a while but once I realized it didn't work very well I gave up on that. Sometime around 10th grade I started using the NWS forecasts which I quickly realized were much better than the weather.com forecasts. Then I started reading the AFDs and by my junior year I was googling "gfs models" and "CAA" trying to find out what the heck they were talking about. To this day I still google "gfs models" every time I want to look at the GFS .. I still haven't bothered to bookmark it and it's just habit at this point. So the last half of junior year and my whole senior year I spent warning people about every D4 threat on the GFS and NAM. I think eventually I figured out how to find the Euro too.. but I still could not make much sense of the 500mb charts and some other terms in the AFDs. So sometime early freshman year of college, absolutely giddy that I had just tripled my seasonal snowfall average, I started googling "weather forum" or something along those lines and I think this was the first or second place I stumbled across. It was a long quest, but it was destiny.

[Jebman]

How did I find Eastern?

I heard about it on Storm2K and also on WWBB.

I joined Eastern in late November 2004, I think. Eastern was started in May 2003.

This board, American Weather Forums is all over Google already. I was doing some keyword research in early December and had decided to research old snowstorms and up it came on the results. Clicked on it, read some threads and joined.

This board is going to be one hell of a weather resource!

WE need to find a dependable way to preserve the database this time around.

The 2010s are going to feature extremely WILD weather and this board is going to cover it.

[mulen]

It all started with the weather channel blog we got kicked off that board obscene behaviour D.T had a tantrum and migrated to wright weather and the rest is history.see ya

[ayuud]

I've been obsessed with snow since as long as I can remember so I have probably been destined to find this weenie paradise my entire life.

At first my obsession was satisfied by gluing myself to the weather channel all winter since about 3rd grade. I remember anxiously waiting for Kocin to come on every half hour with his snowfall maps. Little did I know that his book would one day become my bible. Then once I discovered the wonders of the internet I started using weather.com. I remember printing out a daily forecast for the entire summer wondering how they could predict that far in advance. I kept track for a while but once I realized it didn't work very well I gave up on that. Sometime around 10th grade I started using the NWS forecasts which I quickly realized were much better than the weather.com forecasts. Then I started reading the AFDs and by my junior year I was googling "gfs models" and "CAA" trying to find out what the heck they were talking about. To this day I still google "gfs models" every time I want to look at the GFS .. I still haven't bothered to bookmark it and it's just habit at this point. So the last half of junior year and my whole senior year I spent warning people about every D4 threat on the GFS and NAM. I think eventually I figured out how to find the Euro too.. but I still could not make much sense of the 500mb charts and some other terms in the AFDs. So sometime early freshman year of college, absolutely giddy that I had just tripled my seasonal snowfall average, I started googling "weather forum" or something along those lines and I think this was the first or second place I stumbled across. It was a long quest, but it was destiny.

Same here lol

[ski MRG]

I was shovelling snow and all of the sudden I heard the booming voice of God.....

[ackwaves]

Joined Eastern in 2005 after being on that #weather chat for a couple years. Took me a month to finally track down "the gang"(thanks Phil).

Blair

[CoastalWx]

My co-worker (vortex95) asked if I knew about the various weather boards out there. Believe it or not, I didn't even know wx forums existed until 2005. I figured I'd give them a try since they sounded like a good place to weenie out and talk wx. He told me Eastern was a snowboard so I lurked there for a while. I joined back in Nov of '08 and not only did my meteorological knowledge expand, I got to know some good people as well.

[weathafella]

Very simple. I was a regular fixture on IRC chat in the 1990s. I subscribed to WW for models earlier and with better graphics. One day I was tooling around the WW website and noticed the bb. This was in the autumn of 2001. I became one of the very early members to join because eastern when the wwbb server crashed during a busy period in the winter of 2003-04. I was friends with Marcus and Randy from the old chat days. At that time, I was one of most prominent posters with good research to back up my ideas. My life got more complicated and time for posting diminished except in bursts (now...lol). So I went from a prominent knowledgeable poster to an old weenie. All good.

[ROOSTA]

Mine was by chance, someone had mentioned forums from the newsgroups of old, early-mid 90's. Didn't find Eastern (2005)until the newsgroups faded because of spam and jibberish posts. Funny but you can see the evolution and advancement in technology right before our eyes. Who knows 5-10 years from now looking back this will seem antiquated. The forum and other deliveries of messaging, interacting keeps a restless mind occupied. Meteorology is a perfect topic for such medium. Who knows were this ends up. Sky is the limit. The friendships, GTG and roadtrips are great.

Fantastic topic Ray!

[Turtle]

Some of the guys I work with (JoeD, MEk, etc.) talked about it, so I checked it out. I had been on ne.weather way back when, along with offline organizations such as the AAWO and IWW (again, way back when...). So, I checked it out for a bit, even with all the snow weenies. Joined in December 2005. Funny thing about my red tag...I didn't even have to request it. When I joined with my handle (which I have used since way back when), certain somebodys remembered me . I had my red tag within a couple of days. At least, that's the way I remember it.

It's been a fun ride, especially the conferences in PVD and BWI, along with a couple of G2Gs I've managed to make around my schedule.

--Turtle

[tavwtby]

I actually found Eastern while I was looking for model data, being infatuated with weather all my life, then signed up a couple of years ago. Although I'm not too well versed as the mets on here, I'm learning a lot about how the weather works and I'm absolutely addicted. Thanks guys!

[HoarfrostHubb]

I found it written on a restroom wall...

Seriously, I just stumbled upon it while looking up info on the Blizzard of '78... This has become a good sized piece of my non-working/family/friends part of my life... Some great people are on it. My wife thinks I am nuts, though.

[mahk_webstah]

Gosh I can't name a particular moment when I found the boards. I was on ne.weather. That was pre-2000 as I remember discussing Jan 96. There was guy named Gary Gray who posted these long detailed discussions...someone I might have his discussions in the days prior to 6-8 Jan 1996. I remember dialup and how slooooow everything was. Somehow heard about Paul Kocin and I contacted him to buy his book. Sent him a check, talked to him, and he gave me the name of another weenie, a guy named Alan Weiss who lived in the Philly suburbs. I used to go to his house when big storms were progged and hang in his weather den for hours, including just prior to 6 Jan 1996 when he told me the NGM was showing over 3 inches liquid for Philly but that we had to cut it by 1/3. I can't find Alan, perhaps I should ask Paul. Alan would be a leading weenie on here. He is a great guy who knew more about noreasters than most people.

I don't remember getting from ne.weather to eastern. I think there was a gap in time between the two.

I love the board and it is a part of my daily life from Nov to April. A main reason why I wanted to move to New England was the weather and the hopes for more big snows. So far it has been great and occassionally (the last year) disappointing.

[Baroclinic Zone]

Likely a Google search for weather information that kept giving WWBB and EUSWx as results, so I joined. WWBB first than EUSWx after that site stopped. It was January and February of 2005.

[Damage In Tolland]

I saw the link on DT' s website before he had his breakdown with Eastern

[Collinsville]

Eeks. I posted infrequently on some weather chat about 1997-2003, sometime during the 2002-03 season I heard about and joined Wright Weather which led to joining Eastern (Jan 2005) then American (Nov 2010). I had a whopping 941 posts at Eastern

[ChrisM]

i think I literally searched a few years ago "eastern us weather" and easternuswx.com came up. Then, during the switch weatherwiz notified me of the new name

[Tropopause_Fold]

I found it written on a restroom wall...

Seriously, I just stumbled upon it while looking up info on the Blizzard of '78... This has become a good sized piece of my non-working/family/friends part of my life... Some great people are on it. My wife thinks I am nuts, though.

[dendrite]

I've bounced around with the community back to the TWC days in the 90s. TWC to WWBB to EUSWX to here. I even posted on those AOL boards back in the mid 90s.

[Cold Miser]

. . . Searching for a porn movie about a weather girl having sex in the snow, and Eastern poped up.

[Cold Miser]

. . . Seriously, I was doing a search on winter related discussions, and there happened to be a big discussion about a particular weather pattern on Eastern (I think it was related to the mid-Dec storm last year), so I lurked for a while, and then joined in January.

Glad I did. Wealth of knowledge and a great group to be a part of.

[Ginx snewx]

Started in # weather in IIRC then NE.weather then WWBB joined Eastern Sept 04 then here of course during the revolution.

Finding out that there were other people who had the sickness like I did was a tremendous feeling. I have known some posters here since 1990 twenty years!, we go back to AAWO, meeting at Blue Hill observatory, chatting on the 1200 baud Internet while waiting an hour for one sat still to download into a viewer. The ability to glean knowledge and share my knowledge as well as socially interact has really made what was a solo hobby, a shared experience. I have watched as kids have become TV mets, have met some fantastic people. Jerry has over the years shared a wealth of knowledge and wisdom, he is more than an old weenie he is the epitomy of the evolution of weather friends, mobile weenies now. My day is empty if I do not check in here.

[mahk_webstah]

I found it written on a restroom wall...

Seriously, I just stumbled upon it while looking up info on the Blizzard of '78... This has become a good sized piece of my non-working/family/friends part of my life... Some great people are on it. My wife thinks I am nuts, though.

"Looking for 6 inches or more in Tolland?"

[OKpowdah]

Found WeatherMatrix in 2004 (omg there are people like me)

Through that found Storm2K in 2005 (omg people post more than once a day here)

And through S2K I found Eastern in 2006 (joined in February 06) (omg there are smart people here)

[Zeus]

TWC->WWBB->Eastern->American

It's alarming to think I've been at this for fifteen years; I'm legitimately ancient to the online weather community.

I started at the age of ten, during the winter of 1995-1996, under the moniker "ElementalEnergy."

It's pretty much all gone downhill since then.

[Brewbeer]

I had been a long-time follower/lurker of the Eastern board for years before joining and becoming a member several years ago. I initially started frequenting the board because I felt the commercial weather products left a lot to be wanting for, not really providing enough information to me for making plans. I found the board using a google search.

Although I find a lot of the long-range, seasonal forecast discussions on this board interesting from an academic/research standpoint, I am not really interested in what the overall season is prognosticated to be like. I am more interested in what the weather will be in the short to medium range, as I try to plan work and play activities around weather events. For work, I am involved in projects where weather can sometime play a key role in determining if a given activity planned for a project could be canceled, thus costing clients and the company money. For play, I am a skier and white water canoeist, so knowing when the precipitation is coming (and how much) is a must if I am going to hit it when the conditions are optimal.

[hooralph]

TWC (2000)

->WWBB (Feb '01)

->Eastern (Jan '04 during meltdown then permanent in July '04)

->AmericanWx (during the Nov '10 boat lift)

Experimented at DBM, Weennietown along the way.

[phishn]

Don't recall when but I was looking for IPV charts, isentropic analysis, and tropospheric surfaces. Typed something related to those in google, and it found something that was related to a post on Eastern.