“Don’t you, like, do weather for your job?” This question has come up a couple of times since I’ve mentioned to people that I’m doing this experiment. The answer is Yes and No. Yes, I work for a weather technology company. However, 1) I’m not a forecaster and 2) I’m a team-lead/manager. Both of the above mean that I’m not involved in the day-to-day specifics of the weather or weather forecasts. That being said, I expect it to be difficult to avoid over-hearing weather stuff at work. “You picked March to try this? What about severe weather?” Good point! And this is where I have to break some rules. I do have some family that depend on me when there is severe weather. The compromise I’ve settled on is: On days where severe weather is possible, I can be notified of such anytime afternoon on the threat day. I’ll only use Radarscope and if it’s a really bad day, local television. I’m not going to sacrifice personal safety for a silly personal experiment.

Here is what I need to turn off, delete and deactivate: Apps: Radarscope, WeatherRadio, WeatherOps, OK Mesonet, Facebook, Twitter I’ll need to deactivate all my automated WeatherOps planners and alerts and change my browser home-pages to something other than the SPC. I’ll remove myself from the SevereWeather chatroom at work and deactivate notifications. No TV (I don’t watch TV anyway) and no radio in the car. No social media (this may be a beneficial side effect). I’ll have to notify members of my severe weather text message group that info will be limited in March. And finally, I’ll have to work with my office door closed so I don’t overhear anything. Did I miss anything?

Going a month without using weather data? Can it really be that challenging? How often am I really using weather data? When thinking about this experiment, the answers to the above surprised me. As a meteorologist, I’m almost subconsciously using weather data. Friends and family ask me for forecasts all the time and in the vast majority of cases, I can give the next couple of days off the top of my head. The Storm Prediction Center site is my home page. So every time I open my web browser, I know, at a glance, where thunderstorms are likely for the day. Insulating myself from all of that is going to be a challenge and may cause some worry from friends and family that usually depend on me for that kind of info. Tomorrow, I’ll talk about which data I’ll consider off limits and any exceptions I (may) make. In the meantime, think about how often you use weather data throughout your day. I’ll bet you use it more often than you’d think — just consider how often you drive by a bank ...

What was it like to live in Oklahoma before we had modern weather information? Before satellites? Before weather stations? Before Doppler radar!?! I’m going to try and find out. For the month of March, I’m going to avoid as much weather information as I possibly can and see how it impacts my day-to-day life. Over the next week, I’ll be describing how I’m going to do this and laying some ground (or sky?) rules. So follow this series and see what it’s like to be Weather Blind in 2018.