Facebook Roundup: Summer and Hurricane Opinions
We love interacting with our Facebook Fans here at AccuWeather.com. Here's what's hot on the world's largest social network this morning:
In order to prepare for a news story last week, we had asked last week whether Fans considered this year's Atlantic Hurricane Season a dud or an active season, considering that we are already above average with more storms coming.
As I expected, the meteorologists and weather geeks in the audience said that the number of storms was more important (and hence it IS a big season) while more casual weather observers pointed out that little damage has been done to the U.S. coast, so who cares about the "fish storms"?
We fed some of those comments into a the story entitled "What Makes a Hurricane Season Above Average?" where we explained that the U.S. government (NOAA) actually uses the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index to determine the strength of a season. We also talked about our Facebook Fans' opinions in a companion video, which will run nationwide on the AccuWeather.com TV digital cable weather channel. Although the idea from the poll came about internally, this story was essentially generated by our Fans - it couldn't happen without them. And in return, not only did we mention some of them in the story, we educated them about the way that hurricane seasons are tallied.
Sidenote: "ACE" still doesn't take landfall effects into account (because those can be subjective) but it combines the number of named storms (some would say the "naming" of those is subjective) and their strength. As a result, a season with many weak storms might have a similar ACE to a season that only had a handful of storms, but they were strong.
This morning on our Facebook Page, Dennis C. posted a beautiful sunset panorama from "Northern California, the last day of summer 2010." We couldn't have said it better ourselves, Dennis.
Speaking of Summer, we asked the question this morning: "How was your Summer?" Although some Fans simply responded "too short" (lol) many agreed with our analysis in the news story "Summer 2010 In Review" which explained that, while much of the East sweltered this season, Texas was very wet and southern Cali was cool and gloomy. Fan Cade C. said "You might should put flames and a pitchfork hanging out over the southeast - it might illustrate the way it was a bit better. :)" Tayloe W. from New York wishes she had "an ice cream I.V. for most of it." Since AccuWeather HQ is headquartered here in Central Pennsylvania, I'll second that note. We'll be adding some of these comments back into the story.
Fan Arturo S. (who helped us write news stories and blogs for the flooding in Monterrey, Mexico in July) advised us of new heavy rain there: "Serious flooding on Monterrey, Mexico. Over 12 inches of rain in the last 3 days. Main rivers have overflowed flooding homes and businesses. Huge traffic jams over 5 km long in several highways due to flooding at streets, avenues and low areas. Several avenues and low streets are closed. People trapped on flooded avenues been rescued by police forces." Across the world in Slovenia, Fan Andrej F. said "A new, and for now, unofficial record was set with the large scale flooding during the weekend: 650mm (25.6in) - total rainfall in 57 hours."
We also added more videos from our on-air talent (example below; meet Alex and Adrienne on our Facebook Videos Page), who are introducing themselves to the Fans.
Speaking of videos, we announced to Jim Kosek Fan Club fans Thursday that our own Jim K. would be on CNN's HLN all day Friday. If you missed the spots, we posted the best one there last night. You can "like" out our other celebrities' Fan Pages on our Facebook Page, or Friend me (I prefer to interact with Fans directly).
In "weather history" news, we posted the black & white video from the 1938 "Long Island Express" New England hurricane to our U.S. Fans, asking if they remembered the storm. Fan Sharon M. said that her husband George has relatives that still talk about that tragic storm. Claire O. said "I have seen pictures in an old photo album of huge trees that fell down on my grandmother's street just a few miles north of Boston."
Earlier this week, for our Northeast U.S. fans, we warned them of the first frost of the season Monday night, to which several Fans said they were covering up their tender plants. But Fan Mickey M. said: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO." My sentiments exactly. I don't look forward to winter here in Pennsylvania. By using the custom regions within Facebook, we were able to post this story only to states where it was relevant, so we didn't annoy users elsewhere.
And finally, it's that time of year again - Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. Not only are our Fans posting photos of fall color to our Page and our online Photo Gallery, but we'll ask for their help later this week when we start making the weekly version of the Fall Foliage Map (average version shown below). If what they see outside disagrees with our estimate, we'll tweak the map.
