Weather Underground Category 6 Blog To Close

It's not often that the closure of a blog makes the Washington Post, but that happened when it was announced that the Weather Company (now owned by IBM) would be shuttering its popular Weather Underground Category 6 blog. I've been reading this blog since I first heard about it around the time of Hurricane Katrina. Since then it's been my (and many, many other's) go to site for news about weather, climate change, and tropical storms, both in North America and around the world. The comment section was the place to go whenever a major storm hit as the the updates from the community gave a real-time picture of what was going on. 

For weather enthusiasts, one of the most recognizable casualties of the cuts is the shuttering of Weather Underground’s Category 6 blog, started by Weather Underground co-founder Jeff Masters in 2005.

The blog has been a centerpiece of the Weather Underground website, which is a hub of weather forecasts, data and maps. Masters, who holds a doctorate in meteorology and served for four years as a flight meteorologist for NOAA’s Hurricane Hunters, co-founded the company in 1995 and sold it to the Weather Company in 2012.

Most recently, the Category 6 blog has been run by meteorologist and weather journalist Bob Henson, who is among those laid off. Henson confirmed that updates to the blog will cease after June 22, when he departs.

Fortunately, both Masters and Henson will be writing regularly for the Yale Climate Connection site with a blog named "Eye of the Storm". The Tropical Tidbits site is also worth a look.