This month, we’re going to take a quick look at all the ways you can use the Internet to monitor a topic that’s the safest conversation starter around.  For when you meet somebody new, no matter what their interests are, no matter what their likes and dislikes, no matter what their views on the world situation, you can always break the ice with them by talking about . . .

Of course, the answer here is “the weather.”  Mother Nature’s whims and whimsies are always an interesting topic, especially in this part of the country where you can go from 0° to 60° in 6.2 seconds (that is an exaggeration, but only a slight one).  Just like any other topic under the sun, the Internet offers you many ways to get the latest information so that you can be weather-savvy in conversation—and we’re going to take a look at a few of them here.

Many weather sites online will offer you a variety of features.  Almost all will allow you to type in any location in the United States by city name or ZIP code (some offer you international locations as well).  The site then gives you the forecast for that location, radar maps, satellite maps, and/or severe weather information,   Many sites will also give you travel planning information, airport information, and vacation tips regarding the location you choose.  Some will even give you information about hotels, restaurants, and shops for a given location.

Some of the most well known of these sites are The Weather Channel, Weather Underground, the National Weather Service, and AccuWeather.  In addition, MSN, CNN, and Yahoo all maintain separate weather pages as part of their sites..

For all these sites, the focus is on national (and in some cases international) weather information.  However, especially during times of storms or other severe weather, it’s sometimes nice to have a weather site that focuses more on the local picture in our area.  The Internet can also help you in such a case.

All four of the local Omaha television stations—KMTV Channel 3, WOWT Channel 6, KETV Channel 7, and KPTM Channel 42—have weather pages that give you every detail you need for the local weather happenings.  For our customers in northeast Nebraska, you can go to the Sioux City television stations—KTIV Channel 4, KCAU Channel 9, and KMEG Channel 14—and access similar pages on their Web sites.

In addition, many of the local stations have features that allow you to display their current weather information constantly on your computer (usually as an icon in the system tray in the lower right hand corner of your Windows screen that can be activated with a click), or you can sign up to have the station send you e-mails with weather alerts and other weather information.  Note:  sometimes these alerts and desktop reminders can consume larger amounts of system resources when running in the background on your computer, so it’s a good idea to keep an eye on your computer’s performance after you download them to deal with any issues that might arise.

This may seem like a lot of separate links to keep track of a lot of weather information.  But fortunately, we’ve made things easier for you.  The HunTel.net® home page has a link to a weather page containing many of these links in a single location for easy reference.  Click on the link in this paragraph and you can access that page.

In this area, it’s a fact of life that the weather can change in a matter of minutes.  So it’s nice that the instant communication world of the Internet allows you to stay up to date with weather information, no matter where you are or what kind of weather you have.

Thank you for using HunTel.net!