I am a meteorologist and a former youth leader at church…I have a lot to say on both subjects…and then some
I’m still doing some testing and making sure things work. Today was a new graphic and rebranding. We’re now calling it “Coffee & Weather with Jeff.” My wife did the art and suggested the renaming. I don’t do live analysis as much anymore. I’ve been focused more on just what the weather is doing and the forecast. I also got the chat widget in OBS to integrate with my YouTube account, so I can do the lives and see if anyone is commenting.
So here is today’s 45 min broadcast where I talked about the icing issues in lower Michigan coming up tonight and into Tuesday.
Happy New Year!
I’m still getting the bugs out of my software and Mac. However, I’m starting to get into the flow of doing this. I’m hoping to start doing this earlier in the morning, so people can use it to plan.
if you want anything different, then let me know in the comments on the video or on my X (@nmirecwx) or Facebook (recreational.weather) accounts.
Read my previous blog on what I’m doing now. With my issues that I found while doing the livestream, I still managed to keep the time below 30 minutes.
Hi Everyone!
I’m going to try this again. I would like to do a weather videos. I’m just having trouble keeping focused. If you don’t know, my wife and I are on the Great American Loop, where we circumnavigate the eastern half of the United States. We started in Lake Michigan, and have gotten through the Rivers (Calumet, Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee, and Tombigbee rivers). After a delay in Mobile, we moved on to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, and are currently in Panama City, FL. When we are traveling, my coverage will be spotty, but I’m going to try to keep up.
When I first started this, I tried to be a multi-regional weather video creator. I’ve tried to cover South Texas and Lower Michigan. As we have been boating, I’ve also tried to cover the forecast as we move about. This has caused either one long video (up to 45 minutes at times) or 2 to 3 separate videos that are 15-25 minutes.
One of the issues have been that instead of a Mac which gives me flexible software to either record or go live, I’ve been using my tablet, which the software has been limiting, mainly due to Apple’s limitation of the iPad only handling one screen, instead of multiple. It also doesn’t allow me to illustrate as I livestream or record. I could do this if all I was doing was live streaming severe weather, with the streaming app, and the radar app, I can do what Ryan Hall or Max Velocity do. However, I’m trying to do something different.
With all of the prep, recording, and then distributing on various media platforms has been time consuming. Following James Spann, a meteorologist in Alabama, who has been live streaming, focused on Alabama, but showing the whole country. I’m going to go back and see if I can somewhat replicate this, with my own spin.
So here we go again…
I discuss the rain ending in Mobile. I’m also changing the frequency of the videos. I’m going to do 2 long videos per week with the forecast going out 7 days, and then update the forecast as needed.
Want a forecast? DM on social media accounts…
Websites used: Weather.gov (WPC/SPC/Local offices),
https://Tropicaltidbits.com,
https://weather.cod.edu (College of DuPage),
https://weathernerds.org
Apps used: RadarScope
EverythingWeather
Web Links: https://ministry-weather.com
Facebook: recreational.weather
Instagram: recreational.weather
X: (South Texas and Lower Michigan Recreational Weather) @nmirecwx
I’m going to try and get these out a little more timely, until we start to get underway again. We could be here near Mobile, AL for a bit. Otherwise, the weather looks interesting across the forecast areas. Lower Michigan looks to get snow every couple of days, as the jet stream sets up for systems to come out of Canada and move through the Great Lakes or the Ohio Valley. South Texas has an end to their rain tonight, then it looks dry for a few days. The Gulf Coast, near Mobile will continue to have showers as the front has yet to clear the region, so moisture and such keep filling in. This is another 45 minute one, so I put chapters in for you to be able to fast forward to the relevant sections. I may try to do a full forecast every couple of days, en masse, and update the 3 sections as I need to. Like this week coming up, I may lay off South Texas with no rain, and maybe update things for Lower Michigan and Southern Alabama, since they currently have snow and rain, respectively.
Want a forecast? DM on social media accounts…
Web Page: https://ministry-weather.com
Facebook: recreational.weather
Instagram: recreational.weather
X: (South Texas and Lower Michigan Recreational Weather) @nmirecwx
Websites used:
Weather.gov (WPC/SPC/Local offices),
https://Tropicaltidbits.com,
https://weather.cod.edu (College of DuPage)
https://weathernerds.org
Apps used:
RadarScope,
EverythingWeather
I’m going to blog some of the weather, while we are sitting in a marina near Mobile, AL. It rained most of Monday (12/01/2025). Our friends on Metamorpha Seas moved east toward Pensacola, and there midway point in Florida. The sun peaked out today, so Mary and I went into Mobile to sight see and get some lunch. However, rain is in our forecast, and more snow is expected to be in Lower Michigan during the next 72 hours. Light rain is expected over South Texas.
It looks like WPC has worked on the Probabilistic Precipitation Portal, so that it supports snow amounts as well as rain and ice. This is a great improvement from just rain a year ago. With the probabilistic snow we can give context to the snow amounts. I also have DESI to be able to use, that the Global Systems Lab has for experimental use as well. It was down during the government shutdown (thanks Republicrats and Demopublicans. I dislike both parties, one of the reasons I took the early retirement.), but it has now returned. This too helps to determine context between the models. So without further ado, as I try to get the weather
I used the original software today (CamoStudio). It lacks a couple of features, that TopDirector has, that would be helpful. I had an encoder issue (TopDirector) on the previous two livestreams that ended the stream after a minute and a half. I may go back to creating Google Slides, if I continue to stream with CamoStudio. Here’s the livestream recording…
Websites used: Weather.gov (WPC/SPC/Local offices)
https://Tropicaltidbits.com
https://weather.cod.edu (College of DuPage)
https://beta.pivotalweather.com
https://weathernerds.org
Apps used: RadarScope
EverythingWeather
Web Links: https://ministry-weather.com
Facebook: recreational.weather
Instagram: recreational.weather
X: (South Texas and Lower Michigan Recreational Weather) @nmirecwx
As some may know, I have been trying to find a suitable solution to do live again. Well, maybe 2 solutions.
The first solution is the old solution with wireless HDMI and mouse pads. That gets rid of the extra wires and gives my wireless mouse something to move across.
The second solution is “TopDirector” app for iOS and iPadOS. I ran into it while reading an article about the Canon EOS R50 V. Which is a mirror-less camera that can livestream. Something my DSLR can do to a limited extent. Anyway, if you look at my YouTube page, I was able to do it, and the app lets my annotate things while I’m streaming. The app also lets me record directly too.
I may not have to do so much preproduction as well. Lately, I have been loading Google Slides with the screen captures of the things I want to show. Now, I just need to put the screen captures into photos or files, and I can preview and show them, just like I’m running a switcher. I’ll see if I have sometime tomorrow morning, after getting my granddaughter off to school, or during the afternoon, when the grandson is taking a nap. Either way, I may get back to live streaming the weather again! Definitely will continue to record it!
Okay, So things were running a little sluggish in my brain, especially when we were traveling daily on the Illinois River. We are now on the Mississippi and preparing to go on our next big jump to the Tennessee River, but first a little break. When we begin moving again, I’m hoping that my new work flow will get me to get out the three (3!) versions in fast enough time that I can get them out while we are moving down the Mississippi and on the Ohio River.
Websites used:
Weather.gov (WPC/SPC/Local offices),
Tropical Tidbits
College of DuPage Weather
Pivotal Weather (Beta site)
Weathernerds
Apps used: RadarScope, EverythingWeather
Facebook: recreational.weather
Instagram: recreational.weather
X.com: (South Texas and Lower Michigan Recreational Weather) @nmirecwx
Anyway, here are the three versions from this morning…
