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A Manifesto by Jonathan R. Chamberlin 4

How Tasty
is Your
Soup?

This is dedicated to all the great teachers:

Doug Beck, Glenn Eksa, Lou-Ann Rogers,
Mike Miller, Ken Lazar, and Laurie-Anne Myers
Contents

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The modern school system favors a standard in thinking.
Blog Do not overlook the creative student!
It is their ideas that help change the world.
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How Tasty The soup you are being served is bland!
is Your There’s none of the flavors or ingredients you like. You love chilled cucumber soup with mint,
Soup? but you get chicken noodle. In fact, we are all getting chicken noodle soup!

What is this? The Great Depression!? Where there is little choice but to have the same as
everyone else? It is 2009 and shouldn’t be this way.

Of course this “soup” is not something you eat. Instead it represents the forecast, our daily
lives, activities and weather experiences within Earth’s atmosphere.

Here is the breakdown of this liquid meal: the soup bowl represents our individual lives (no
two bowls are identical). The broth represents everyday and routine weather. The larger
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ingredients signify noteworthy weather events. And the taste of the soup? Well, that
represents the forecast.
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To help manage this “soup” we have weather services that tell us about the day’s weather
Blog (the soup’s ingredients) through the forecast (the soup’s flavor). Since forever, this important
service has continuously created the same flavored soup to satisfy everyone’s taste buds…
but that makes for a tragically bland dish.
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On the other hand, a forecast, which features our favorite flavors, tastes great, creates
anticipation, and saves time - our most important resource - changes how we view our
Print environment and start our day; it can drastically change our opinions of what a forecast
should be and modify an industry, and helps answer one of the greatest unknown questions
- what’s the weather going to be like today?

So…what’s the flavor of your favorite soup?

3  4
How Tasty I want to thank everyone who is reading this eBook. To all the meteorologists, students,
marketers, programmers, technologists, bloggers, optimists, and of course the skeptics -

is Your it means a lot.

Here are the rules:

Soup? 1. Please share this eBook if you find it worthy of being read. Copy this site’s URL
(howtastyisyoursoup.com) into an email and send it out.

2. This eBook is copyrighted. You don’t need permission to post, write or quote from
this book. (If you do, please let me know - if only for my curiosity). Just don’t modify
it or sell it.

3. If you have any suggestions, insights, problems or requests you can send me an
Contents email: jonrchamberlin@gmail.com

(Look for the contact page at the end.)

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How Tasty A Three Stage Movement
is Your This journey has been marked by many opportunities for me to share new ideas about
Soup? the weather forecast. Whether speaking to family, friends, strangers or colleagues, the
resonating and greatly appreciated reply was, “that’s interesting”. As anyone who is trying to
create change knows, this response can get a little old.

The first purpose of this manifesto is to change people’s ideals by sharing new insights. I aim
to change, “That’s interesting” into “That’s awesome”, or even “That’s the bee’s knees”.

The second purpose is to inspire your thoughts and to evoke a sense of wonder. I want
you to have ideas about ways we can change weather, while getting you excited about the
prospect of a new and wonderful service. My hope is that you come to view your
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environment and the forecast differently, and realize that this change is possible.

Info The third and final purpose is to gain support (in whatever form that may take). Share this
eBook with someone who would like to read it or join our tribes on the web. When you hear
Blog someone talk about the weather, tell them about this website. Get involved!

How Tasty is Your Soup? was written 11 blocks from the campus of Pennsylvania State
Zoom University - home to the most recognizable meteorology program in the United States.

It is composed of two smaller books full of ideas and thoughts about weather, which are
Print separated by a thrilling intermission titled The Mother of Invention.

Attention! If you are expecting marketing mumbo jumbo words in the form of “paradigm shifting” and
“Web 2.0”, or pages detailing how personal weather stations are the future, you will be sadly disappointed.

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How Tasty This EBook Includes:
is Your
Soup? What the forecast is really. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Why people look for it in the first place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Why accuracy is B.S.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Who is qualified to help with prediction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

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And many other cool insights and ideas
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How Tasty New Terms to Watch for:
is Your New Weather: Changing how people receive their forecast, both in its message
Soup? and through the medium it is presented. (The future of weather
dissemination)

Fauxologists: Everyday people, without the education, title or authority, acting in

the position of professionals.

Chamberlin’s Triangle: A pyramid-shaped diagram that displays the three levels of

weather forecasting. Each level corresponds to the number of
forecasts within.
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Global Forecasts: The top area of Chamberlin’s Triangle, which represents a forecast
for the world.
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Communal Forecasts: The middle area of the Triangle, which represents the forecasts of
Blog specific geographical areas. (These are currently found by entering
your zip code into any weather site and receiving a city-based
weather forecast).
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Micro Forecasts: The bottom area of the Triangle, which represents the forecasts of
individuals and is nearly limitless.
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How Tasty Preface
is Your How important is weather? Let’s be honest with ourselves: it’s not often that we reflect
Soup? deeply on such ordinary things. The weather forecast is just that – it’s crucial, but “just there”
at the same time. We have never cared so little about something that affects us so much!

Consider this: what happens outside influences life decisions, both large and small. That’s
why we are attuned to weather in the first place.

When you first applied to College did you consider its location? Were you okay with the
prospect of walking to class in the snow? Maybe even what the College taught was based on
the local climate. For the meteorologists out there - if you wanted to focus your education on
hurricanes, did you go to school in the Midwest or were the better schools in the Southeast?
Contents
C.O.A.P.S anyone?

Info Once we have that post-graduation freedom, don’t we tend to make decisions that mirror
our lives? What happened after you graduated? Did you aim for a job in California to enjoy a
Blog laid back lifestyle? What about where you raised a family? How about retirement? There is a
reason everyone moves to Florida, right?

Zoom All of those are pretty big decisions that we luckily don’t make everyday. However, we make
small daily decisions that are still pretty darn important.

Print I know we don’t wake up each morning with a strong urge to look at the forecast. Weather
doesn’t produce the same anticipation as looking at our favorite blogs, checking our email or
maybe taking that early jog. But even though the itch isn’t there, there is still something to
scratch. It is seldom that we go into the day without even a minor understanding of what to
expect.

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How Tasty We have decisions to make. Do we need sunglasses, even though it’s the dead of winter? Will
we need to search for that coveted shaded area in our company’s parking lot? Does it look

is Your like Timmy’s soccer practice will be canceled? Is it so hot that I’m either cooking on the grill or
going to a restaurant?

Soup? The list of questions could go on for hundreds of pages (look for this to be the second book!).
Yet we see these are all important questions that need to be met on a daily basis.

What’s unique about our daily relationship with weather is that it’s one of the few things that
everyone is “connected” to - albeit on different levels. That is to say, we all have a relationship
with the environment, but unequally - for some, their relationship is stronger than others.

The landscaper, who works outside for most of the day, is very connected with the forecast.
Even the athlete, who works outside as well, also has a strong connection with the weather.
Contents And the same could be said for teenagers who have the luxury of enjoying their summer
vacation 24/7.
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Even though these people are equally connected, they may look for different things in the
forecast. The landscaper may care for humidity, the athlete for wind speed and the teenager
Blog for temperature.

Connection can be even more staggered:

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A business manager’s morning and evening commute could be very important, but mid-day
Print may have little consequence. On the other hand, a small business owner may worry about
the temperature during the 2 pm fresh meat delivery. And your neighbor, who bikes daily at
5 pm, may have concerns altogether different than yours.

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How Tasty The point of all this is to show you that people treat the forecast differently. Even though we
look at the same forecast, we interpret it to fit our own lives. We see identical things and yet

is Your something completely different at the same time. “It’s quite the anomaly”, as someone
probably once said.

Soup? Homework: Next time you are downtown on a cool night, take a look around. See that guy in
a T-shirt and shorts? How about that woman in the mom-jeans? Did you notice the guy in the
light wind-breaker? How about the college-aged student in the long sleeve Oxford?

What you see is more than people expressing their dress styles. You are viewing the result of
a personal decision. The prized result of the forecast is not necessarily one that is accurate.
The real prize comes from knowing the choices you made were accurate, it’s only there you
find an ending result that you’re happy with.

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How Tasty Book One
is Your Weather forecasting can be divided into a three stage triangle. The size of each stage relates
Soup? to the others in many ways. Most significant at present is this:

The size of each stage correlates to the number of different forecasts found
within that stage.

The first stage of the pyramid symbolizes the one great global forecast. We may not
recognize this world-wide forecast, but we hear a lot about it these days in the form of global
warming. This forecast is simple: ”It’s getting warmer”.

The second stage is made up of many communal forecasts. These are familiar to everyone.
Contents
We see them on the back of newspapers and when we search for weather online. They are
the forecasts intended for exact geographical locations, exclusively for that location’s
Info residents and visitors; they number in the thousands.

Blog The third and final stage is comprised of micro-forecasts, or individual forecasts, which play
an important role in New Weather. Where communal forecasts are limited in number
(because there are only so many zip codes and cities), the number of micro-forecast’s is near
Zoom limitless.

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It just so happens that the word triangle rhymes with my family’s last name – it was either that or “Three-Sided
Weather Throwing Star”

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How Tasty Chamberlin’s Triangle
is Your
Soup?

US Global Forecasts

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90210 Communal Forecasts
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Zoom YOU Micro-Forecasts

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How Tasty This nice and neat relationship could not be more different when we look at the nature of the
markets.

is Your The global forecast’s primary media is through the news and reports, and we talk about it

Soup?
because of its commonality. A small number of really smart scientists work on it and there’s
typically a level of blind trust on our part. This global forecast also has a huge asset in Al
Gore- its leader.

The communal forecast is synonymous with mixed media - print, radio, television and the
Internet. There is a sizable level of distrust toward meteorologists and these types of
forecasts (warranted or not, it’s still there). A long time ago the communal forecast was
remarkable enough that it was worth sharing, but is now so common that we never talk
about the idea of a local forecast. The people that produce this forecast are educated and
passionate individuals who work across several companies.
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New Weather is found exclusively online and through your tech products. People talk about
Info and share New Weather because it’s remarkable. It’s for zip codes, groups and individuals. It
invites trust by focusing on your relationship with weather and the environment, rather than
the one dimensional concentration of accuracy. It is marketable and is deserving of a leader.
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How Tasty What is New Weather?
is Your The term New Weather is comparable to the Internet jargon that has appeared over the past
Soup? several years. It is yet another term that is open to debate and interpretation. However, there
are two primary attributes that drive this new foray into online weather.

The first thing to understand is in what context “New” is being used. In the framework of this
manifesto, it’s meant as a fresh way of looking at the forecast; it denotes originality and
innovation. It’s not associated with weather merely being recent, modern, or even the latest
fad. Now of course New Weather can and will be both of those things at some point, but the
truer spirit lies in the former, not the latter.

The first characteristic involves looking at weather from a non-meteorological standpoint.

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Instead of a singular focus on the science of accuracy, we look at the resolvable problems
associated with how people view, interact with, read and experience weather and the fore-
Info cast. This new perspective leads to understanding our interactions and behavior in our
environment and how that translates to a forecast.
Blog
The second attribute of New Weather is the translation and presentation of this new forecast.
This is primarily done through a different breed of weather site - where information and
Zoom design compliment one another and work together. It’s the conception of a website that is
not a have to, but a want to. Further adoption, though, is found through tech products like
our cellphone, iPod and even GPS.
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My question to you: What if there was a weather site that created the same anticipation as
checking your favorite blogs, e-mail or Facebook page!?

That, is New Weather.

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How Tasty Fulfilling Forecast
is Your But why do we even have, need or want weather forecasts in the first place? What is the
Soup? human interest in the forecast?

1. Safety. We want and need to know when “danger” is coming - it is human nature
and a deep-seated need.

2. Comfort. We want to know how to prepare against the elements (should I go

clothes shopping soon?). Again, it is human nature.

3. Planning and Decisions. Not so much an instinct or human nature, but just as
important. Based on what I see in this forecast, how will it affect my day, how will I
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prepare for it, what changes will I make?

Info So we have these three purposes of the weather forecast, which are essentially the basis of
an entire industry and act as a “hierarchy of forecast needs”.
Blog
Safety is placed at the top as the strongest need, but because of the era we live in, its role
is diminished. We may require this need only a couple times a year due to things like hur-
Zoom ricanes. You can see its by-product in amplified online page views and visits (also because
there’s something interesting to look at - more on this later).

Print In the middle we place comfort. This level is interesting since it is pretty varied. First, we are
dealing with large changes, like the seasons, to much smaller events like minor deviations in
temperature, which affects people differently. On this lower end of the spectrum, we see the
individualistic nature toward weather (like when roommates play tag with the thermostat).

3 15 4
How Tasty The third purpose of the forecast, planning and decision making, fulfills a relatively new
need. In this day and age we are busier than we’ve ever been; our daily needs of the forecast

is Your (comfort, planning and decisions) take precedence over our humanistic and primitive needs
(shelter and safety), which are now assumed. Clearly, our daily need of the forecast is an

Soup?
emerging evolution!

This evolution, in large part, is helped by the accessibility of the forecast. Gone are the days
when newspapers, radio and television are the sole distributive media for weather. We now
have the Internet, which makes weather easily accessible almost wherever we go, through
multiple products like our home computer, cell phone and even iPod.

What’s amazing is that this evolution has only taken place in the past 10-12 years! So you can
bet that it’s only going to expand and become a standard across several different tech
platforms. You know that person who insistently checks the weather every hour or so? They
Contents are gonna go nuts and love it!

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How Tasty What is a Weather Forecast?
is Your The forecast is not what we think it is. It is more than the wind speed, temperature, humidity,
Soup? barometer pressure and dew point, paired with a sentence or two predicting what will
happen on a given day (with a map or two on the side).

Simply put:

THE WEATHER FORECAST IS A MESSAGE.

Full stop

Contents That message is from a weather service and their meteorologists, to the masses. The inner
dialogue goes something like this: “We’ve taken a look at all the data and here is our
interpretation of what is happening in the environment and what you should expect now
Info and ten days into the future”.

Blog The best messages, those that are worthwhile and memorable, tend to be personal, relevant,
and brief, and are intended to bring some degree of joy to their receivers. Indeed, without
these main attributes, messages lose their luster.
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If it is true that the forecast is a message, and that the best ones fulfill the above-mentioned
structure, then the ideal weather forecast (the soup’s flavor, remember?) is neither being
Print created nor delivered. So, what do we do? Being a smart and resourceful species, we trans-
form the forecast into a new kind of message.

Now when we look at the forecast it becomes relative to our life. That forecast is suddenly a
message about what to expect for the long planned family picnic, that trip to the ball park or
the 7 a.m. tee-time. It is a message about the trip to your massage on Saturday.

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How Tasty Think about this: The common thread in the sites that we regularly visit is due to anticipated

is Your messages. We experience a feeling of eagerness. We follow a blogger because we expect an

incredible insight into a subject we enjoy, we check our e-mail because we expect to

Soup?
receive a great message, or we go to Facebook to see what our “chosen friends” are doing.
But weather just hasn’t created that emotion.

There’s no anticipation with online weather because there is no

anticipated message.

The goal of making something personal and relevant is pretty easy in and of itself. We’ve
seen it done online time and time again. That’s not the challenge. The worthwhile goal of
creating an anticipated message (especially online) is making it memorable and joyful. If you
can create the euphoria that comes with only the best personal messages, then you have
Contents something special.

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How Tasty Why We Look at the Forecast
is Your When we look at the forecast, we do so to get two sets of questions answered. The first set
Soup? includes one question, which is straightforward and simple for the weather sites to answer.
That question is, “what is the weather today?”

The second and more relevant reason we look at the forecast is to answer those questions
that have personal meaning and value to us – those that involve our comfort, planning, and
decisions. What will I wear today? Do I work in the yard or play golf? Is it the grill, the stove or
a restaurant? Am I shoveling snow? When do I go on my daily jog? Do I teach class outside
today? Etc, etc, to almost infinity.

Contents The real utility of the forecast comes from personal questions
we ask ourselves and the answers we get, not explicitly from
Info
knowing that day’s weather.

Currently, when we search for weather, we find the communal forecast, but once we see it,
Blog our minds automatically switch and we picture it in a different way. Searching for weather is
a “self-centered” action (that’s meant in the nicest way). Our motives are different from the
person looking over our shoulder.
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The predominant action of looking at the forecast is not to explicitly know what is
happening outside, but to apply that knowledge to the circumstances and activities of our
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daily lives. Think about it...do people really have this huge interest in weather where they go
to weather sites just to see what’s happening? Of course not, it’s the balance, helpfulness and
insights that people desire.

As an aside, some of us do look at the forecast for social reasons. It makes us feel smart and
important to produce that snippet of weather information.

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How Tasty Personalizing the Forecast
is Your On the surface, the weather is identical to your neighbors, classmates and fellow
Soup? commuters sharing in a traffic jam. A sunny day at the park is the same sunny day to the guy
walking his dog, or to the girl playing Frisbee. The snow that guy is shoveling is the same
snow to his neighbor across the street. “Of course it’s like that, it is so obvious!” we want to
say (with excitement).

Is it though? Believe it or not, weather is not the same for everyone - it’s incredibly different.
When it’s sunny, you see a day to work in the garden, but I see a day of basketball. When it
snows, I see fun in driving the desolate night streets or boarding on the mountain in the morn-
ing, but you see a day of not teaching your 4th grade students and drinking hot chocolate.
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The key to personalizing the forecast comes with matching our perceptions of the outside
world with the forecast. That begins with the end of the current communal page (as we know
Info it) and the start of personal weather pages that provide a canvas for a new kind of forecast

Blog Can we do better than this?

Partly Sunny with a 30% chance of rain

Zoom High of 76
Low of 58

Print How about this?

Rain showers along with windy conditions

High around 50F
Winds WNW at 20 to 30 mph
Chance of rain 50%

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How Tasty

The forecast works best when it helps connect people
to their environment.
is Your The two standard forecast’s above can be found for nearly any area at a given time of year.

Soup? You cannot tell if they are from New Mexico in the winter, Colorado in the summer, New
Jersey in the fall, or Seattle in the spring.

Personalization allows the forecast’s actual meaning to emerge through re-defining those
weather terms. To you, “sunny” isn’t just sunny, but “beautiful”. “Shapes”, a completely
random word to one person, could mean “partly cloudy” to you. And “cloudy” is a little closer
to “gloomy”. Maybe 30% chance of rain is on the threshold of “risk it”. Perhaps 72° is your
perfect temperature, while a high of 76° is pretty close but still a bit warm for your liking, and
50° doesn’t warrant a jacket.

Contents
The physical sensations of weather and our relationships
with them are as different as our personalities.
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That’s easy, but our experience is a bit more complex. From knowing if you need an umbrella
Blog or you’re teaching that class outside, to the über coolness of having your forecast reserve
your tee-time, set reservations at your favorite outdoor restaurant, or buy Yankees tickets
automatically, there’s a deep breadth and opportunity for a forecast that is so much more.
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Personalizing isn’t reserved for the individual. On the local level there is the opportunity for
something completely different. The word “local” is more of a geographical term than the
Print characteristic definition it actually implies. It’s an empty word that has no personality. When
it’s used in reference to people it has negative undertones. To say someone is “a local” implies
they are uncultured and do not hold a candle to your superior intellect. They are without
identity or character. But your town, city, borough, or township is nothing like that. Each zip
code has its own identity; personality and character are unique traits of the community.

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How Tasty When you go to your weather’s zip-code page there is none of that personality. The only
identity is at the top of the page where it says “16801” or “18042”. The opportunity to create a

is Your feeling of community and belonging is ever present, but currently absent.

Soup?
The challenge is obvious and one that affects any weather company. It’s one of trust. In
order to personalize weather you have to have an uncanny amount of trust from the user.
The good news is that this proposition is easy with the Internet. You can be transparent and
have a dialogue with the user (something that is absent with modern weather sites). But, it
can be negative, since it’s also easier to be exposed.

Trust should be treated as the backbone of any service.

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How Tasty The Man Behind the Curtain
is Your Accuracy equals success when it comes to forecasting. If you are a weather service, and don’t
Soup? have it, then you don’t have much. But if you do have it, you are golden and get your own
television channel. That’s why there’s so much value put into accuracy-based products like
Pulse-Doppler radar (one of the most recognizable instruments in forecasting).

The life-line of accuracy wouldn’t be a huge problem if

there was some differentiating, but when you have identical
weather services, and the only thing they rely on is accuracy,
this is what you get.
Contents Here is the thing about accuracy…

Info First, accuracy levels can vary greatly from climate to geography. As such, forecasting tends
to be a much easier proposition in San Diego than in Pittsburgh. Then you have the problem
of consistency. Accuracy tends to drop off considerably after a couple days. And lastly, some
Blog months are easier to predict than others. For example, February is difficult, but July and Au-
gust are easier. There needs to be incredible integrity in the system.
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Second, the percentage movement, as it approaches 100, becomes exponentially more dif-
ficult. You can see similar phenomenon anywhere - in sports, online search and even music.
Print Your first time golfing you may score a 126, and the second time you may score 110 (a pretty
big drop). But to go from 90 to 80 to 75 to par to 1 under is increasingly difficult. While there’s
incredible technology behind Google, it is said that online search is 90% complete, but that
10% movement makes up for 90% of the work. And while it’s pretty easy to pick up a cello, it
may take 10,000 hours of practice to become the next Yo Yo Ma.

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How Tasty For the month of November, the highest accuracy percentage for San Francisco was 76.39%
(lowest was 67.58%). Last year’s total was 86.31% (as you can see, accuracy can vary even in

is Your the same area). In order to go from the mid 70’s into the 80’s, then the 90’s and even from
98% to 99% is harder than the last percentile movement. And while perfect accuracy is cer-

Soup?
tainly a noble goal, and one that should be explored, it requires a very long and arduous
journey - especially when you keep score to the hundredths of a percent.

Accuracy may also be a problem that is mostly solved, not by hacking away piece by piece,
but by a major breakthrough. I subscribe to the theory that when we are able to predict
accurately and consistently for an extended period of time, we become that much closer
to controlling weather. The two may seem unrelated, but are possibly linked closer than we
imagine.

Of course, this all presupposes that perfect accuracy truly exists…

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The other thing to understand about accuracy is that it’s relative. That is to say, any forecast,
Info no matter how perfect it appears, may not be accurate from one person to the next. If you
don’t experience one specific element of the forecast (like that thunder shower or the flur-
ries), you have every right to consider that forecast wrong. And rightly so - because of how
Blog we look at the forecast. The same thing goes for forecasts that say it’s currently snowing, only
to look outside to see the sun. We see more relative qualities of accuracy even from the top
weather companies.
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Accu-Weather was brilliant when they created Realfeel®. Like the name implies, Realfeel® is
Print not the actual temperature but what it feels like - you see giant spreads from humidity in the
summer and wind chill in the winter. Through this concept, Accu-Weather brought to light
the relative nature of the forecast. What Accu-Weather proved is that a more accurate fore-
cast can be created, despite what the data suggests.

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How Tasty

Since the forecast is relative, the very best we can do
and the very best anyone can market is 99.9% accuracy.
is Your Accuracy is not the most important word associated with the forecast– it is trust. The primary

Soup? reason one person goes to one weather site, and a different person decides on another, is
due to the feeling of trust that site evokes. What is not practiced is building trust through
other, more accessible means. Being authentic, open and listening are all easy ways to help
your service and build trust – but they are currently not being done by weather companies.

Consider the other viewpoint of accuracy. It’s one in which the science of forecasting shares
in the duty of connecting people to their environment. Suddenly, the relative nature of the
forecast is taken into account and works to our advantage instead of against. This is
suggesting new types of weather models - ones that are smart, easy, niche and scalable.

Contents We can’t fail to mention that all weather forecasts are relative. New Weather is not immune to
this reality. But, given the option between a communal forecast designed to meet everyone’s
Info needs, compared to a forecast that’s unique, doesn’t rely 100% on science and matches how
people look at the forecast in the first place, it’s not a stretch that they’d name New Weather
as the more accurate choice.
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So why the singular focus on accuracy? The goal of perfect accuracy is to change the want of
Zoom accuracy to the need of accuracy. Whoever does that wins by creating a natural monopoly.

People certainly want accuracy. But oddly enough it’s not a need, mostly because it is not
Print something with which they are familiar, and consequently, can’t compare to anything. For
example, if there was a perfect source of accuracy and it was taken away from you, only then
would you realize “I didn’t know what I was missing!” - only then would it become a need. The
stakes are high, and fuel the search for pure accuracy. Once people experience such
accuracy, the thought of using any other system would be out of the question. Why use
something that only partially fulfills a need when next door there’s satisfaction guaranteed?

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How Tasty Between scientific standards and communal forecasts, there’s a lot of weight being placed on
6-8 inches of snow. Pure accuracy or not, we still view the forecast individually, and adding

is Your the personal element now gets us closer to fulfilling a need while creating a better system.
Be mindful that if pure accuracy is ever achieved it’s still the best way to advance the forecast

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further. No matter what, we are heading in New Weather’s direction.

It doesn’t matter that the forecast was right or wrong.

What matters is that you thought it was right.

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How Tasty Coming to Terms
is Your One of the most recognizable features of the forecast is the terms meteorologists use to
Soup? describe conditions. Here is a short list:

Mostly Cloudy Partly Cloudy

Mostly Sunny Partly Sunny
Cloudy Drizzle
Scattered clouds Muggy
Rain Scattered showers

What’s interesting is that there are quasi-scientific definitions to these terms, and yet we are
completely clueless as to what they really mean.
Contents
For instance, mostly cloudy is reserved for cloud cover no more or less than 6/8 to 7/8, while
Info partly cloudy is cloud cover from 3/8 to 5/8. And scattered clouds represent 3/8 to 4/8 cloud
cover. Partly sunny is the same as partly cloudy, but only during the daylight hours. Drizzle
Blog represents water precipitation smaller than 0.5 mm and anything larger is considered rain.
Muggy has to do with evaporation rates and feeling cool.

Zoom When it comes to “chance of rain” (technically called “PoP”- Probability of Precipitation) we
have our own idea of what it means, and yet we are still clueless. Does 30% chance of rain
imply that 30% of the storm system overhead contains rain? Or is it based on historic data of
Print similar conditions, during which it rained 30 out of 100 times? Does it mean there will be rain
for 30% of the day?

Actually, the top three weather sources all have different definitions of this term. For one,
the PoP represents the probability that precipitation will fall at a given time in an exact area
within the forecast area, but only a measurable amount - above 0.01 inches!

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How Tasty The second includes any amount of precipitation, but only three hours before and after the
forecast was created! And the third discounts an exact location altogether!

is Your But numbers are different, both weather-related and in life. We don’t have many doubts

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about them. The national debt is this big, this many people viewed my blog yesterday, and
your car has this much horsepower. We drive by the bank and see that the temperature says
78°. We don’t think, “No, it feels closer to 74°”. And wind speed of 10 mph never feels like 14.

When we see weather terms, their real definitions don’t matter to us. We don’t say to
ourselves, “Oh, cloud cover will be from 3/8 to 4/8” or “Hmm…it seems likely that sometime
today we will see a precipitation event somewhere in the forecast area”. No, we think, “Today
sounds pretty nice. I think I will go to the park later” or “Another sunny day, when are we
going to get some rain!” or “I should grab my umbrella just in case”.

Contents These weather terms, just like accuracy, are also relative. They carry different connotations
for certain people. When we see partly cloudy, rain showers or flurries we don’t imagine their
Info exact definition.

We tell stories to ourselves about what to expect, often

Blog
recollecting those rare perfect days during which, our
experience within the environment matched perfectly
Zoom with the weather.

It is obvious that the median players in the forecast are meteorologists. They collect the data,
Print translate it and then present it to us in the form of a communal forecast. But what they are
presenting is not quite right - it’s still in their language, and not ours. And despite the
attempts to fix this, through those terms, it becomes necessary for us to make some
translations.

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How Tasty Granted, it is natural for meteorologists to create such forecasts, especially when your work
is completely based on the collection, translation and distribution of scientific data.

is Your Tragically for us, the end result is a forecast that has the look and feel of science, even to the
point where weather maps look like something found in a student’s meteorology lab final.

Soup?

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How Tasty The Mother of Invention
is Your Monday, February 6th, 2006 was a night filled with frigid air. 1,000 feet to the southeast
Soup? wound the Delaware River, 80 feet to the northwest sat a 400-foot-tall cooling tower spewing
steam vapor, like exhaust from a 750-acre machine.

In between rested a lone guard house with a solemn figure at the helm. The two doors of the
shack acted as a gateway to two different worlds. On one side was freedom, family and
relaxation; on the other was the plant-work, coal, 9 to 5.

Not unlike a bull horn, the light of the shack screamed “escape here!”. The only other light
came from the foul rift road leading to the plant. With lights situated on either side it
probably looked like a runway from the sky. Of course who was to know? Illegal airspace
Contents
Anticipation was thick in the “North gate house”. There the guard sat in his chair surrounded
Info by books, a heater and computer (no need to waste electricity here). Tonight was different;
one hundred other nights were easy.
Blog
Fake, temporary inspiration was hard to come by. Marketing, Business Communication,
Philosophy, those were easy. Why Business Law? No left or right movement for creativity, just
Zoom rules and, well…laws.

Only 12 hours left ‘til the first exam. Palms were sweaty. Fifteen minutes into the textbook,
Print but thinking about how Survival is Not Enough. Friendly late night ghosts of Martins Creek
glance into the guard house; they hear and assume nothing. But inside, with the warmth, is
the sound of high expectations! Like the announcement of D-day over the radio comes the
forecast - and with it, hope!

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How Tasty It’s now assumed, in this small shack near the Delaware, next to a monster of tubular
concrete, that classes will be canceled! One forecast calls for snow and ice, another for the

is Your same - but more of the latter. Relief comes, as five extra days to study is looming!
The guard leaves his post and heads home through Jersey, via 519. Awaiting the guard’s

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return for another day, the large cooling towers remain in the distance for miles.

Arrival is sounded as gravel crunches under the tires of the guard’s Cavalier. Inside he checks
the weather forecast; “Dial-up sucks”, he thinks to himself. This thought is rudely interrupted.
Reality strikes! According to the weather maps, it’s clearly obvious that both reports were
wrong; it’s now clear that he’ll be receiving only freezing rain, along with a major test in the
morning.

Dreaming ends with the awakening of a new nightmare. The thought enters his mind to stay
in bed and act as if the world was white outside. “No can do” he thinks, as he gets ready for
Contents class.

Info On the wet highway a question flashes in his mind. “What happened?” A person with an
intuitive knowledge of local weather, as well as a stronger than average interest, predicted
the weather more exactly than the professionals! He speeds off to his test.
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How Tasty Book Two
is Your Online weather is a huge market, and one that has remained untapped or at least unaltered
Soup? by those seeking to create change. Out of the divisions of “News”, weather is one of the most
visited, and is the third reason most people use the internet (right after general browsing
and email).

This speaks to the importance of weather in our lives. We should all be grateful for sites like
Wunderground.com (first on the web), accu-weather.com, weather.com and NOAA’s national
weather service (nws.noaa.gov), who had the foresight to bring weather into the digital age.

What they overlooked and missed out on was redefining the meaning of the forecast, and
with it, an opportunity. Instead of something new and unexpected, the information we
Contents
currently find on weather sites is identical to their television stations (sans the shows) and to
the back page of newspapers.
Info
The beauty of the Internet is that it gives us an excuse to try new things, to create bold ideas
Blog and to take advantage of incredible technologies. It allows us to connect with one another
and create a digital landscape that’s open to planting, digging, posting, modifying, and
building - it is not restricted by the constricting rules and standards of the offline world. It’s a
Zoom magical place where the invisible backend can create a “wow!” reaction for the front end user.

There is no “wow!” in online weather.

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Without “wow!” online weather goes nowhere. Its current state vs. where it could be is a
theoretical conversation. Weather.com is currently ranked 20th out of all U.S. sites, and
number one for weather. More likely than not, there will always be a weather site in the top
25, but New Weather has the potential to be positioned much higher.

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How Tasty The only way to get there is through change - to dismiss the current standard, embrace the
quirky and unproven, and create a user experience. The sites listed above won’t crack the

is Your vaunted top 10 with the same format they currently endorse. The likelihood that people will
become engaged and suddenly embrace weather with flurries of daily visits and

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conversations, hence bringing online weather to the forefront, is miniscule.

The anomaly about weather sites’ page views and

rankings is that when there’s interest in weather
(such as hurricanes) you see these numbers increase.
Lesson learned? Build something worthwhile, something
people want to see, make them happy, and they will show up.

This is not a cheap jab at Weather services; rather, it is questioning the role weather plays on-
Contents line, as a whole, and expressing a strong belief that online weather should be so much more.
Arguably, the only way you come to a strong conviction is by questioning the status quo.
Info So let’s face the music. Online weather is not that hot. Weather sites are notorious for being
packed with information, and while the sites may organize it well, they’re still plagued by
Blog information overload. We end up navigating through an onslaught of extra clicks, figures and
secondary pages, yet what results is a very small percentage of information that is actually
pertinent to us, as individuals.
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Compounding this problem are certain obstructions that keep us from reaching our
destination. We are met with slow load times and monetary barriers in the form of popup ads
Print and other intrusive ads taking precedence over the forecast.

Design is not any better. We never hear the words pretty, sexy or rich being used to describe
these sites. “Elegant user interface” is also absent. They are a hodgepodge of color, void of the
white space that we desire. And the experience is right up there with car insurance sites.

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How Tasty Blink! That is the goal. It’s not about page loads and it’s not about keeping the users
occupied with extra weather-related content so they stay on your site longer. For that

is Your matter it’s not about creating a one-stop-weather-shop that pleases everyone. It’s certainly
not about randomly mixing new media with weather. Placing weather-related YouTube

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videos on your site is pointless and leaves the user asking “who cares?”

It’s about people fulfilling their weather needs in the time it takes to blink their eyes or snap
their fingers. It’s about an experience you have no qualms reliving two or three times a day.

It’s about a weather site that doesn’t resemble any weather site you’ve seen. It’s about a
forecast that doesn’t look like a weather forecast, but strangely enough, fulfills your needs
better than any other forecast ever could. It’s about being a starting point and not a
destination.

Contents Blink. Get your weather. Go.

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How Tasty Change
is Your Every 5-7 years we see a turnover in the online world. Our first substantial foray into the web
Soup? was with online consumerism. We saw companies like Amazon and eBay, after years of hard
work, become overnight successes.

A couple years after the dot-com bubble burst of 2001, we saw the formation of the new
web. This came with social media and personalization with blogs, Myspace and Youtube.

During these eras we continued to witness a steady growth of innovation and ideas. Anyone
who appreciates change can find solace in knowing this aspect of the web will not diminish.

The following pages outline a few ideas and innovations that we may see with New Weather.
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They may not be huge steps, but are at least slight changes that can lead to a better
experience.
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How Tasty Yay! Social Networking!
is Your This statement is good-humored and a little sarcastic. All too often we see a belief that
Soup? adding social networking to any market will magically cause people to come in droves and
seamlessly transform the boring into something cool. So it’s not surprising if some of you
cringe when thinking about social networking and weather being used in the same sentence
(I do). After all, a social network for weather does sound kind of dull to most of us. That said,
don’t think of Myspace or Facebook. It is only the elements of those sites that matter and can
benefit New Weather.

At the center of social networking we have one simple concept: “connecting people”. It’s from
that viewpoint that we can again change how weather is disseminated and transform our
online experience. It includes changing something as singular as weather into a community
Contents
based event.

Info There are two ways social networking comes into play.

Blog Groups
This is cool. We are just as likely to do things with a group as we are with ourselves -
especially outside. So it seems obvious we should be able to make group weather pages that
Zoom could be both temporary and permanent.

Build a temporary weather page for your golfing buddies or beach bums. Maybe your class
Print needs one for the spring trip or your day trip to New York City. Build a page for your son’s
Little League lacrosse team or your school’s snowboard club.

Or build a permanent page for the employees of your landscaping business, or your tanning
salon patrons! Maybe your Union does not permit work when it’s above 98 degrees. Build
one for them. And my favorite - build one for your family.

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How Tasty Understand that this will be more than a weather page. You’ll be able to export weather
information into a groups forecast. These groups will then be able to communicate with one

is Your another: “Humidity is at 100%, we can’t paint today”. Outsiders will be able to view the page
even if they don’t have an account.

Soup? Matches
Every year, if I’m fortunate enough, I get to play a round of golf with my grandfather. It
seems every time we play we reach out and ask someone on the course to join us. We’ve
played with some interesting individuals, and a moment of discomfort is worth meeting
someone new.

Weather is at the forefront of a lot of our outdoor activities, particularly when we do

something as a group.

Contents When our hobbies and interests intersect with someone else’s, and then combine with
outdoor conditions, the opportunity for a shared experience arises - whether it be finding
Info someone to play tennis against, enjoying outdoor shopping with, or having your friend’s face
my friend’s in a game of football.
Blog Either way, there is a line where utility and clouded nothingness meet social networking. On
one side you can advance an already great site and an industry; on the other there’s a mess
Zoom of worthlessness.

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How Tasty Less is Much More
is Your If you go to any weather site, you will see some of the same designs, layouts and placeholder
Soup? images. This is fine (to a point), but more important is that the partitioning of the forecast
remains constant. You see forecasts subdivided into hours, then into different increments
of days.

The future forecast will contain a one-day and a weekend forecast. This is for several reasons.

• The one-day and the weekend forecast contain the information that people really
care about. Simply put, the one-day, is tomorrow, and the weekend is what people
enjoy planning for - it is playtime!
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• The further you get out in the forecast, the less reliable it is. Conversely, if a site
Info focuses on a one-day forecast (really strives for perfection), it will seem like the
more accurate choice.
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• Anything past tomorrow is forgotten. We have short term forecast memories. Look
at the five-day forecast, then try to remember it 24 hours from now. The real utility
Zoom of the forecast is lost and ultimately becomes pointless.

• Design is also an issue. This allows the site to be user-focused and clean, without
Print pointless content.

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How Tasty Fauxologist
is Your Early on in the life of New Weather, there was the question of who exactly is qualified to
Soup? create forecasts (you can see this question take shape in the short story at the intermission of
the book). Before New Weather, this answer was simply the person who has a college degree
in Meteorology (or possibly is trained by the military).

Since New Weather’s inception, that once simple question has become noticeably vague.
From the understanding of the forecast, the glass ceiling of qualification has moved. That’s
not to say the bar has been lowered. We are simple dealing with a different kind of forecast.

The word that was created to describe this new position is:
Contents
Fauxologist
Info Fauxologist: “False-practice”. A Fauxologist is an individual who participates in the duty of
someone who is deemed qualified by an institute or academia. While sometimes it’s involves
Blog a complete takeover of professional duties, it always includes a level of passion, and is not
limited to the scientific world. Neither is it explicitly limited to the online world.

Zoom In a church, you may find a pastor who does not have a degree in theology, but merely a
strong passion and calling to lead a congregation. Many farmers work personally within the
realm of agrology or agrotechnology, but have not attained a degree in that field of study.
Print You can even say people that collect postcards could be called Fauxologists in some regard,
but they have their own name-deltiology.

Within the wide terminology, we are all Fauxologists in some facet. If it’s taking the role of
mechanic, chef, or tailor, we all partake in activities that someone does professionally.

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How Tasty New Weather includes what is aptly called “Weather Fauxologists”. This subset of Fauxologists
involves three groups:

is Your • Hobbyists: These people predict weather as a hobby. You may find these people are

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very good at weather prediction since it involves a lot of passion.

• Enthusiasts: These people check the weather forecast multiple times a day; you
probably know a few. They have an intuitive understanding of weather.

• Meteorologists: The professionals.

(As an aside to Hobbyists and Enthusiasts helping with prediction: It seems that we have the
ability to predict more accurately when we live in the same area for a number of years. We
become strangely attuned to how that area of our climate “acts”. This insight comes from my
Contents personal experience.)

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How Tasty Afterthoughts and Conclusion
is Your This book opened with a diagram of the three stages of weather forecasting, and an
Soup? explanation of how the size of each stage relates to one another. We then looked at how the
markets of the forecast are entirely unrelated.

Succeeding the diagram, we defined the term “New Weather” and soon after touched on the
fulfillment we get from the forecast and its evolution. We then defined the forecast as a type
of message, and explored the reasons why we look at that forecast.

We turned a corner by analyzing the current forecast and introducing the potentials of
personalized forecasts, while providing a short insight into a reprogrammed local weather
page. The lofty goal of analyzing accuracy was studied, and we came to the conclusion that
Contents
accuracy can be B.S. Closing the first book, we came to terms with terms and found we
essentially hear what we want to hear.
Info
The second book switched sides as we shortly discussed the interpretation of the first book
Blog through a new kind of weather site. First we distinguished the important elements of social
networking, then we talked about the value and upside of a one-day forecast. We concluded
with an explanation of the new term “Fauxologist”.
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How Tasty is your Soup? touches on some very important topics. Not necessarily because it
proposes change for the current industry, but because it represents change for the individual
Print - you and me.

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How Tasty Some may take issue with the length and depth of this book. The truth is that its length and
depth are ideal. Could it have been 200+ pages? It sure could have. I could have expanded

is Your some topics, added more riffs, spoke about building trust through transparency and
openness, shared more insights, talked about marketing and the formation of a new weather

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company, maybe included some guest writers and wrote a bit more about weather’s relation
to the web and your tech gadgets. But that would have been a barrier for you - the reader. A
quick half hour read is perfect. Perhaps an encore performance will appear in the future.

Connect People to Their Environment.

That’s a very powerful statement and an even bigger idea.

Where does this statement converge with the weather industry and the forecast? If Circle A
represents traditional weather and Circle B represents New Weather, I believe that Circle B is
Contents not encompassing. That is to say, New Weather is not confined to traditional weather alone.

Info It does more than that. The idea of connecting people to their environment can be so
extensive that Circle A is inside Circle B and only takes up a small portion of that oval. It’s only
by our limitations that this book covers weather - because that’s how far our understanding
Blog goes at this point in time.

Zoom Maybe we are just scratching the surface. Perhaps the concentration on accuracy is the core
to something larger. Imagine if you will, “accuracy” being at the center of two branches. One
branch is the science of accuracy. This is the weather forecast as it is known today. Then we
Print have this second new branch or dimension to accuracy emerging – New Weather. This is also
based on accuracy, and yet it’s in complete opposite to the other branch. Perhaps there are
other branches or dimensions yet to be discovered.

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How Tasty It’s my belief that 20 years or so into the future, everyone will be connected in some way to
their environment - through some kind of service. And maybe a couple hundred years down

is Your the road we will be talking about new connections within our environment.

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For now we have weather and the forecast. One thing we can all agree on is that there is
diversity. There is diversity in the environment. We have the weather, where precipitation
changes based on the scale of temperature. We have a cycle of seasons that bring diverse
precipitations and temperatures. Then we have roughly thirteen different climate zones.
Some are temperate and others are frigid or hot. In some areas you can be on a warm beach
in the morning and in the afternoon be snow bound.

Finally there is tremendous diversity within the people that live on this planet. We have 6.75
billion people living across seven continents; they speak thousands of different languages,
belong to innumerable cultures, live in large metropolitans, small cities, suburbs or the
Contents countryside, work outside and inside and take part in limitless outdoor activities everyday.

Info We then have the bridge between these diverse systems - the forecast. That forecast has
largely had a singular focus on the science of accuracy. Instead of a singular focus, How Tasty
is Your Soup? proposes a branching out from that nuclei. Not to create a diverse forecast per
Blog se, but a new bridge for diverse people.

Throughout the remainder of the book, mass change is discussed. However, after reading
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How Tasty is Your Soup? it seems difficult to imagine one of the well-known weather
companies adapting the book’s philosophy and running with it.
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Coming to that conclusion is warranted. It’s hard to imagine such things because New
Weather’s thought process is a complete 180° about-face to their usual fare. We know that
the livelihood of traditional weather is in complete opposition to everything this books
stands for. It’s not their job to do anything but create a more accurate forecast through
science and weather models, for your zip code.

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How Tasty No, ideas that bring this kind of change come from the corners. Not from a person or
company who’s already a big player in the weather game, but from a small voice of change

is Your screaming from the sidelines that has the cojones to take on that challenge.

Soup? American Express did not create PayPal.

Barnes & Nobles did not create Amazon.

Sotheby’s did not create eBay.

And for the most part this is a very good thing. I believe we need this new factor thrown into
the mix. Weather needs new ideas from someone who can come along and advance the
industry, because, let’s face it, the industry is stagnant. We have several large companies
Contents playing what seems like a chess match.

For those who are disenchanted by this prospect, don’t worry. New Weather must be built
Info by those with the express purpose of connecting people to their environment. These
builders must focus their talent and skill on that single point. They would become clumsy
Blog and awkward if they employed hundreds of meteorologists and focused on traditional
weather forecasting, just as the larger weather sites would have trouble incorporating New
Weather successfully.
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New Weather can’t have the explicit goal of taking over all weather markets. In fact, it’s in
everyone’s best interest for it to remain separate. We are extremely fortunate to have these
Print weather companies. Can you imagine a life without the forewarning of powerful and
dangerous storms? And we are indeed truly blessed to have passionate, enthusiastic,
dedicated and intelligent Meteorologists to bring us the forecast. To remove their system
completely would be a huge mistake and loss for everyone. To have two systems, though, is a
gain for everyone.

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How Tasty The best thing for Weather.com or Accu-weather to do is help new weather sites by looking
at how they can work together and create more useful weather information. The larger

is Your benefit comes when we turn weather into something cool and make people fall in love with
it. By doing this, young people become interested in weather, which will bring change and

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new ideas to the field of meteorology. Current weather companies will indeed help
themselves as they help New Weather.

This book is primarily about the philosophy and psychology of weather, the environment
and forecasts. It’s not a blueprint for success. What I mean by that is philosophy is great for
understanding and sharing ideas and for a book, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into a
field guide for starting a business. If I wanted to do that this book would look entirely
different. It would have focused on the three cores of New Weather instead of personalizing
forecasts. Chamberlin’s Triangle would have introduced more ways each stage is related to
one another. The characteristics of an open-sourced weather site would be discussed.
Contents And the grassroots nature of marketing, including how New Weather can be shared, would
be examined.
Info
Forget about philosophy, it won’t pay the bills. Instead, focus on bringing people joy with
your weather service. If you can make them smile, “wow” them, and be authentic, then you
Blog have it made.

The End.
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How Tasty Acknowledgments
is Your This is to thank all of those who had a direct hand in developing the mind that wrote this.
Soup? Without them, this book would not be what it is.

Nathan Snell
Ideas make people unique. You have incredible insights that make you
unparalleled to anyone else. I wish you the greatest success in the world. Thesnell.com

Paul McEnany
You are one of the top young new media marketers and marketing bloggers. Thanks for your
friendship and for listening all these years. You rock. HeeHawMarketing.com
Contents
Scott Ayres
I can’t tell you how many times you were there to take a step forward. Thank you. Linkedin
Info
Shawn Snyder
Blog You were there since the beginning. There is no one I know who has more ideas and natural
talent in economics, finance and investing. Your success and future is literally without limits.
Linkedin
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Joey Primiani
Joey, you are truly the coolest geek. There are very few people that could do what you have
Print done in such a short period of time. First Yahoo! and then Rev3, all before the age of 21! You
are going places. California is calling my name! joeyprimiani.com

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How Tasty And a special thanks to the people who aided in the readability of How Tasty is Your Soup? If
this book did not give you a headache it was because of them.

is Your My editor, Megan Silvius. I’ve never seen so much red! Thanks for catching all the mental
lapses, goofy errors and horrible wording. megansilvius@yahoo.com
Soup? Paul Durban is responsible for this incredible look and layout. He also designed the
Tribes Q & A EBook. If you are creating an EBook, Paul can be found here.

I stole from some smart people:

Seth Godin first wrote about American Express not creating Paypal, and Barnes & Nobles not
creating Amazon, because those ideas are in complete disagreement with one another. I just
applied it to weather. He wrote (among some other amazing books) Survival is not Enough
Contents
My understanding of PoP and 30% chance of rain was gleaned from Carl Bialik, A.K.A. The
Info Numbers Guy – a writer for The Wall Street Journal. Here is his blog post on deciphering a
20% chance of rain.

Blog My analysis of weather terminology came from the NOAA’s website. You can find those pages
here and here.
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How Tasty About me in 109 words
is Your I am not a writer (as you can very well see). I enjoy entrepreneurial things and marketing
Soup? stuff. I listen to music.

Ideas energize me and I don’t care for traditions or the status quo.

My first memory of snow and of my Mother is shared. I love snow, but hate the cold. In the
winter I would come home from school and watch The Weather Channel for an hour or two.

I’d like to find a place where ideas reign supreme and where the weather is nice (what I
perceive as nice). And where I can work with insanely talented people and change the world.
Contents
Did you count?

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How Tasty Find me!
is Your Hey, I’m around the web. If you want to chat or have something on your mind, you can find
Soup? me here:

Facebook | Linkedin | Twitter | Blog

I’ve created two groups for followers. One is on Facebook the other can be found at
Ning.com. You don’t have to believe in what I say to join, you just need to believe that
weather should be changed.

Facebook - Sorry, please do a group search: Change Weather

Contents
Ning.com

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