Good evening everyone,

I hope everyone has had an excellent holiday season so far and I wish everyone a Happy New Year!  For me 2010 could potentially be one of the most important years in my life, and I do not make that statement lightly.  As many of you know, I’ve been hinting at and thinking about the idea of adding a premium membership to this website for a reasonable price.  Before I go into the details of where I want to take NY NJ PA Weather, I think it is important to explain why I am going this route.

The fact of the matter is I love working on this website.  For some out there, forecasting is a job.  A task to do to earn a pay check.  For me, forecasting and discussing the weather is simply who I am.  Like an artist makes art, I simply must forecast and study the weather.  It is the very core of who I am in some respects and at times is the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing when I go to bed.  When I started this website a little over 3 years ago, I never imagined I’d even get this far in terms of traffic, membership, even merchandise.  All I wanted to do was simply chat about the weather and maybe make a little extra spending cash.  Because of YOU, this website has grown well beyond what I ever thought possible, and believe me I won’t forget it.

As the website has grown so have the demands of my experience and knowledge.  Believe me, I am not saying I am the world’s greatest meteorologist.  Far from it.  I leave that level of achieve to those like Paul Kocin and others who are the giants in this field.  However, the fact is that I get on average 150 emails in my box on questions from meteorology homework questions to whether snow will fall in someone’s location.  As much as I would love to answer all of these emails and address all of the issues, the fact of the matter is that there is just not enough time between this site, my personal life, and working another job.  So something had to give.

This is where I decided to take a leap of faith.  My goal is to make this website my full time, only occupation.  Of course, doing that would mean that I’d have to make an income from this website.  To be fair, the advertisement does bring in some money, but not nearly enough to live on.  The solution however was staring me right in the face, my traffic.  The fact of the matter is that if I somehow was able to transition a half of a percent of the population of the New York City and Philadelphia metropolitan area, I would have no problem making this my full time occupation.  Sounds like a pretty reasonable goal, so I say lets go for it!

Now, what can you expect to change?

For those of you that come to this website to read the discussions and simply get an idea of what I think is going to happen.  Nothing will change.  I will still produce one to two updates per day with the best information I can possible provide.  You can still copy and paste those discussions in weather boards if  you like.  All of this is free.  Another service that will remain free is the text messaging service.  Many individuals say I can make a real killing with this service, but I use the text messaging to alert people of dangerous weather conditions.  I don’t believe that the public’s safety should be something that should be charged for.  As a sense of morality, I am keeping this free and no sing up is needed.

For those of you who are members now, there are some changes, but I think most of them you will like.  As non paying members, you will now have your own member section, which I will unveil tomorrow.  Likely in the afternoon.  In this section you will find your monthly new letters, the climate data, and special discussions like the drought in southern New Jersey.  Basic membership is still free.  As for the news letters, I am frankly sick and tired of these email hackers in the lists.  To protect you from these hackers and to end the stress that these episodes give me, the Monthly News Letters will be found on a new Members Only Page.  Now, you don’t have to worry if your spam blocker is going to block the latest New Letter.  You simply log in, click the Monthly News Letter link and have fun reading!  All News Letters will continue to be updated on the first of the month.

The premium section!  Okay, so naturally you are wondering what I will offer here.  Initially, the premium section will offer the following services.  For one, all members have access to a private email account in which you can ask me meteorology questions and will have live interaction with me through storm events.  A much loved aspect of this site of late has been the Live Chat that I have during storm events.  This will now be part of the premium service.  I am working on having the actual chat on the free section during storms, but only Premium members can interact.  Further, I will provide in depth discussions on potential storm events, long range thoughts, and even regional analysis.  The old question of what will happen in my back yard will be addressed with the regional discussions.  Further, pod casting and video presentations will also be added to the service at the start.

This is only the beginning though.  I have in the ground works the setting up of streaming video for live weather events and developing a page for model data.  The goal I have for NY NJ PA Weather is to be more than a blog but your go to source for the northern Mid Atlantic.  Much like the Weather Channel used to be the Must Watch Television for many of us in the 1990′s, I am going to work to provide the best and most ground breaking coverage I can on the regional weather of the northern Mid Atlantic.  I can’t promise I’ll always will be right, but  I can promise you will feel like you are right there with me breaking down the latest data and tracking the storm.

I want to say thank you to all of you who have sent emails of support and advise over the past few days.  I also want to thank all of those who have visited.  You have my word that the investment you make in this website will be returned to you 10 fold over the next few months and years as this website grows.

More details on the premium website prices and features in the next 24 hours.  In the meantime, we have a winter storm to track!

Sincerely,

Steven DiMartino