Even though it’s the beginning of January and my 2023 storm chasing trip is scheduled for mid May, I’m already excited about the whole affair.
With Twitter going completely sideways since Elon Musk’s purchase of the platform, I’m remembering how dependent I was on the service last year when it came to seeing what other storm chasers were up to. There are plenty of other data sources to see where storm chasers are located. I belong to the Spotter’s Network and I track other sources through various apps, including RadarScope. But Twitter was incredibly convenient for incoming data. While my two remaining Twitter accounts remain dormant, I’ll probably fire up my aviation and storm chasing account when we get closer to traditional chase season, even if I just use it for monitoring and following. That is if Twitter is still around and people are actually using it. I keep hearing about tons of folks leaving the platform.
There’s always Facebook for this information as well, but with its kooky algorithms I’m left with a feed of a bit of storm chasing information, a bunch of ads trying to sell me shaving cream or beard balm, lovely pictures of friends’ cats, and then an ad for a politician I have no interest in.
Today’s popular Internet services are not really designed for those that need a focused data stream. And let’s face it, we all need a more focused data stream.
