Finger Lakes Weather Status Update

Fund Drive Results

During the month of March, I held an emergency Fund Drive to ensure Finger Lakes Weather would be financially secure for the future.

This drive was necessitated by a change in finances caused by the loss of a long-time major client due to their own financial changes.

Since Finger Lakes Weather is my career and primary job, I was faced with the challenge of replacing a significant portion of my family’s income.

I founded Finger Lakes Weather in 2012 while in Graduate School at Cornell. Initially the focus was fully on providing forecasts for clients. By Fall 2014, as I finished up my master’s degree, I became more dedicated to public weather forecasting with the founding of this blog.

The growth of the public side of Finger Lakes Weather has been tremendous in the nearly five years since. Last Spring, I held a fund drive to generate some stable income from the public side of Finger Lakes Weather. Combined with my clientele, I was able to leave my part-time job. This allowed me to expand my services and coverage for the public, especially during more serious weather events.

With the loss of my primary client, I had several choices to make, including whether or not to continue Finger Lakes Weather or get a more traditional job.

I decided to host a Fund Drive for monthly donors for a few reasons. First, my passion is forecasting for the general public. Writing this blog, covering severe weather, and above all, helping people stay safe and plan their day to day activities is what I love to do. With so much effort and time put into the public side of my forecasting business, it needed to support itself.

Secondly, relying on a large quantity of small monthly donations is significantly more secure than having one or two large paying clients.

I am pleased to announce that the plan worked and Finger Lakes Weather is financially stable once more.

While I did not quite meet the admittedly lofty goals I set, the results were very close. I have simply been overwhelmed by the response to my call for support with your kindness and generosity!

What is Next?

Finger Lakes Weather will continue to operate in the manner it has done for the last few years. Daily weekday morning blog posts, and special weekend and evening updates, will continue with the same level of detail and passion you are used to.

I constantly have a number of ideas for improvement floating around in my head and will continue to gradually work on those ideas. You can help out by joining the FLX Weather Support group on Facebook. I often post new projects and ideas there first to get feedback before implementing the final product. The group is marked as “closed”, so you need to apply to join. Please answer the screening questions so I know you are not a spammer.

As I mentioned during the Fund Drive, I am in the very beginning stages of working on an app. When this app can be made will depend on additional funding from additional donors, new advertisers, and other unknown opportunities that may arise in the coming months. There is currently no set timeline for this.

Around 60% of my daily web traffic is driven from Facebook, which continues to make it more and more difficult for me to reach my followers. Recent research in the social media marketing community indicates that links to external websites that are shared on a Facebook page are seeing fewer views. This coincides with trends I have seen, though my reach is still way above normal. Still, I may need to implement new strategies on Facebook in the near future to ensure you are still getting the information you want and need. I strongly suggest signing up for my email list as an alternative to Facebook.

My focus has now turned to the severe thunderstorm season and how to best communicate those threats to you. I made great progress this winter with new graphics and methodologies and I hope to replicate those improvements for our summertime hazards. Again, join the Facebook group and you will get to see these new ideas first. Of course, feedback is always welcome on everything I do, whether or not you are in the Facebook group.

In Conclusion

Once more, I cannot say how much your support to me has meant during the last month. Thank you a hundred times over!

Finger Lakes Weather is here to stay and we are just getting started!

Missed the Fund Drive?

You can still chip in! As I mentioned, I did not quite reach my goals, so any additional donations will only help further! Thank you!