Getting Started

Welcome to my Weather Blog!  I've been spending way too much time trying to decide in which direction to take this blog.  I'm still fairly undecided so I figure I should just jump in and figure it out as I go.   But here's a few of my ideas of what you can expect... (aside from lots of elipses)

1.  I'll talk about fun/crazy/dangerous/peculiar weather phenomena, from a scientific angle and the human angle.

2.  I'm fascinated by all kinds of weather, not just the violent stuff we tend to focus on in Cable TV news.   And I love geography, travel and people, so I'll probably bring in world weather stories.

3.  I really want a lot of info flowing back to me..like your weather stories, and pictures and video.  I'll put your pictures on this blog in a really cool way, and every chance I get I'll throw your pictures into one of my TV forecasts.   It will be really cool when we are breaking weather stories on TV because you are sending me pictures via Twitter @rickreichmuth or on the link on this page.

Enough of that.  So check out these pictures out of Sydney, Australia from yesterday?  They got hit by one of their worst dust storm in decades.   Dust storms aren't all that uncommon but they don't typically make it all the way to the eastern coastal areas.   Australia is a typically dry continent and suffers from periodic drought, but some areas in the southeast are under their worst drought on record.   Add in a big 60 mph wind storm and this is what can happen.

Eastern Australia's drought will likely worsen over the next 6 months as they are dramatically impacted by El Niño ...and we are entering into a strong El Niño cycle.