In the following page you will have the worksheets and instruction guide on how to develop a basic forecast. Another link will take you to a page with instructions on how to operate the weather computers.
General:
The Central Coast features a number of microclimates, however there are 4 main types: Beach, Coastal Valleys, Interior/Mtns, and Southcoast.
Beaches: are any community with direct contact with the ocean or within 5 miles.
Coastal Valleys: are communities separated from the ocean by either hills or longer valleys (SLO, Santa Maria)
Interior/Mtns: are locations 10 miles or more from the coast, generally separated by very long valleys or taller mountains. (Santa Ynez, Paso Robles Atascadero)
Southcoast: locations south of the Santa Ynez Mtns and generally south facing communities (Goleta, Santa Barbara, Carpenteria)
You will have to make an assessment of the forecast for all locations to be able to accurately describe the weather. (For instance there may be fog at the beaches and coast but not in the valleys. Temperatures may be different by as much as 40 degrees at times. Broad generalizations should be avoided unless they are universally true for all types.)
Text descriptions of the forecast (sky conditions, wind, temperature) can be found here, 6 locations are broken out here as the weather service sees them as different ‘zones’ however the Mtns are typically very similar (except during storms where the tall Santa Ynez Mtns can see snow. These are also the zones the weather service uses to break down warnings and advisories. You should note any as you will likely want to mention it in the weather presentation. You should take a quick look at these forecasts to help you describe what is happening and what will happen.
Temperature Forecast:
The National Weather Service office in Oxnard produces something called the State Forecast Table which includes all of the numbers for our 6 day Forecast Sheet and many (but not all) of the numbers we will need to fill out the Temperature Forecast Worksheet. The rest can be found at the links below:
Morro Bay (and Los Osos)
Templeton (and Atascadero)
The Microclimate Forecast will require you to fill out the Microclimate Worksheet, and then input that into the computer later (for web and on-air use). The microclimate forecast is the next day’s forecast broken down into 4 time periods (7AM, 12PM, 5PM, 10PM). The computer will estimate cloud coverage and rain, but you will have to input the temperatures.
You will find them but clicking the ‘details’ link for the corresponding day, finding the time and the estimated temperature.
It is helpful to know the normal highs and lows and precipitation, those are only officially kept in our area for Santa Maria, Paso Robles and Santa Barbara. San Luis Obispo’s near the bottom on the left hand side.
You will also need to know how to fill out the Weather Watcher Report, not only so you know what has happened but also to fill out the ticker in ENPS. The National Weather service issues the HIGH-LOW-PRECIP report two times a day. The report comes down at before 11am each morning and between 4:30-5:30pm. It only lists a few towns but the ones listed generally become official reports. The morning report is helpful for the am lows and overnight precip however will only contain the high from the prior day, the pm report is the one important one, make sure to note which you are looking at so you don’t confuse the information. The rest of our reports come from the weather watchers, which are messages on extention 402 (passcode 2580) and 587 (passcode 2580). The rest of the towns have automated weather sites, the links are found below. You should typically wait until after 4pm to fill this out as high temperatures often have been reached by then.
The forecast line must also be updated. That is extention 580 (passcode 1663), hit keys 3-1-1 to record and pound when you are done, listen to the prompts if you are not happy with your recording you have an option to re-record by hitting 1 again. Simply make an audio version of the forecast, you will have to generalize or read a few of the zone forecasts from the link above. Finish by saying that complete forecast details can be found on ksby tv and on ksby.com and ‘have a nice day.’
The web also needs to be updated. There is something we refer to as the ‘forecast blurb’ it is just a sentence or two which gives people a feel for the upcoming forecast. If you are not sure what type of information should go in here, just look at ksby.com and click on weather and see the existing entry. These need to be updated as our web product is heavily promoted. I think the weekend weather person has also posted the video of the forecast to the web…see Amber for details on how to do this.
LINK TO COMPUTER OPERATION
