Who Am I?

                                                 About Me – Josh Adams

           I originally got interested in weather at age 5 or 6, watching The Weather Channel just about every day for a few hours. I thought all of the maps and graphics were intriguing and admired the whole weather topic. But back then I didn’t know much about weather and made the assumption that only professional meteorologists could make forecasts on the computer and that a kid like me only has pencils and paper. I continued to watch the weather and also did not know much at all about geography so when I looked at a county map of the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, which is where I grew up until 9 in, everything just looked like black lines on a green background.

          But when I was about 11 I started to make winter outlooks because the winter is my favorite season on paper with a printed out US map and markers. Initially everything on those maps were just guesses and I didn’t know what I was doing. Because I love snow, both for the 10 – 11 and 11 – 12 winter, I put Eastern PA in the most above average snowfall and below normal temperatures possible, as every kid would want. But in August of 2012, I looked at some winter outlooks on the computer and made a YouTube account to post videos on because I discovered a program called Microsoft Paint. So I drew a map and tried to color it and then just posted it.

          I still really did not know what I was doing but I started to hear of the El Nino, Neutral, and La Nina, all past of the ENSO.  Going on, that was pretty new to me and I wanted to learn more about it and just the winter. So I found a person named Stephen Boyle on YouTube and took part in some of his Livestreams. One night, he offered anyone that was there to come to a program called Paltalk to talk with his friends. He said he was a NOAA meteorologist, but he actually was not, but he still knew quite a bit about weather. So Stephen really taught me about weather and how to make my maps.

          That winter, which was last winter I released my first ever winter outlook to YouTube with some pretty nice graphics and even a few 2012 White Christmas Forecasts, overall I did ok attracting about 30,000 views. After that, I continued to gain knowledge in the meteorology topic and even had my own website called Weathernowus which I have to admit was pretty successful. Then I decided to switch to Northeast Weather Action as a backup blog in late January and didn’t really use it that much. During this time period, I went on with learning more and more each day about the meteorological topic.

          After that, I continued to make more and more weather forecasts and updates, as well as learning more and more ways to make my maps and forecasts better and better. I fully switched over to Northeast Weather Action in the middle part of May and yet still to this day keep on focusing every day on the weather topic and getting more and more knowledge. I know I am only 13 but I know a good amount about the weather topic and always love any support I can get. I plan to progress more and more into the weather subject and soon become a member of the American Meteorological Society. I also plan to attend college to get some kind of degree in Meteorology.

          To me everything takes time in weather and if you are anxious you will get nowhere. I think this because when you first get interested in weather and put your content online, you wish just about the whole world would see it as soon as you posted it. But what you have to realize is the more consistent you are the more and more you will get noticed in the weather society. That is my advice to anyone new to the weather field. Lastly just to say I now live in Southern Pennsylvania, in the town of York, about 2 hours away from the Lehigh Valley. This is my summary of how I got interested in weather and thanks for reading the whole thing. Have a great and safe day!