For the ultimate nerds: I present the WeatherSTAR 4000 Emulator. With music based on the season and live current conditions. Intensity is indicated by the color code at the top of the screen.
posted by ALongDecember at 1:50 PM on December 17, 2008 [6 favorites]

The only time I would watch TWC was during severe weather, so I associate the music with the "Beep Beep Beeps" of tornado warnings and very scary looking radar images of nebulous storms tracking east in vague directions.

Also, the 10 minute wait between updates while TWC talks about every other area of the country while a hailstorm from Revelations is bearing down on you can be the longest 10 minutes ever.
I grew up in central KS, so I'm a big weather nut
posted by hellojed at 2:01 PM on December 17, 2008

The music on The Weather Channel has never bothered me that much. It's inoffensive sonic wallpaper that you can easily tune out. I'd rather listen to The Weather Channel than, say, some Top 40 N¨¹ Metal "Asshole Rock" group.

It's sure smooth, but what elsoe do you expect TWC to play? Sonny Sharrock? Keiji Haino?
posted by porn in the woods at 2:06 PM on December 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

I never knew there were so many musical artists that I had never heard of before..... oh wait Shadowfax!! Thank you, I will totally spend the rest of my evening playing Name That Weather Channel Tune.
posted by jessamyn at 2:10 PM on December 17, 2008

I went to a TWC concert - man, you¡¯ve got to see those guys live.
The fireworks go off - boom!
Y¡¯know, somewhere else, but not there. It¡¯s just totally quiet.

And Doug Markley gets into ¡°Floating Away¡± the way you¡¯d put on a shoe, and your mind just goes numb with the banal meaninglessness of it.

By the time C.C. Gilmore broke out ¡°One and Only¡± I was totally spaced out and I got that sort of weak feeling your hands get y¡¯know? And my head hurt like if you¡¯ve taken too long a nap and it¡¯s late enough to be dark but too early to go back to bed.

And then ¡°Feelin Fine¡± comes on. Man, that was in-sane! Like totally insane! Like I felt like I was in an insane asylum man!
And by that I mean, strapped down for hours in a featureless padded room and tranquilized into mental oblivion.

And backstage - wow! Hookers, blow, groupies giving head, wild craziness - there was none of that! Just a plain bare walled room with a couch.
...yeeah!


Before we go to sleep we generally check the weather and I often amuse my wife by pretending to be really into the weather channel music.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:26 PM on December 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

That weatherstar 4000 is really badass. The only thing it is missing is the scrolling advertisements on the bottom of the screen (not really) and the music. Although it misses the ads, that still evokes memories of watching the weather channel (at least once a day, Everyday, because I was afraid of storms growing up)

The music section is great, but I receive blips on mp3s that I download from there :/
posted by fizzix at 2:28 PM on December 17, 2008

(to be clear - not that this post isn¡¯t kick ass. In fact, I¡¯m going to download some of this and blast it out my windows this summer with a smug look on my face)
posted by Smedleyman at 2:54 PM on December 17, 2008

Nothing beats Weather Channel reggae.
posted by NoMich at 3:31 PM on December 17, 2008

Sometime between 1999 and 2004, I swear I tuned into TWC one day and they were playing Cypress Hill as the background music. It was awesome.
posted by mrbill at 4:15 PM on December 17, 2008

Back in freshman year of college (gulp! 1993), my intro to meteorology professor said (or maybe threatened) that he would give out best of the Weather Channel music CDs to people who got A's.

The playlist by year stuff is pretty cool. I used to listen to the Local on the 8s half asleep before getting up for class. I probably have most of the mid 90s stuff burned into my brain.
posted by weathergal at 4:56 PM on December 17, 2008

I've -listens- I've forgotten what I was going to say.

Weather on the 10s.


Friend of mine was on TV for a morning show. The male hosts shave their knuckles so the makeup doesn't cake. She said the look of Newsreaders, in full TV makeup, was like seeing huge, wrinkled babies.
posted by The Whelk at 5:45 PM on December 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Good to see Bernie Williams earning a living since the Yankees decided not to renew his contract. Fantastic post by the way, I just wish there was more Windham Hill so I could harass my friend about it.
posted by mollweide at 6:29 PM on December 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Music to get struck by lightning by. (Almost happened to me. Had hair way back when; nearly lost it all at once.) And some breezy music to listen to while watching the smoke drift away....
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 9:33 PM on December 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Laugh if you want to, but I never would have even HEARD of Pat Metheny if it wasn't for the Weather Channel. Now I have all of his music.


Please kill me.
posted by SPUTNIK at 6:18 AM on December 18, 2008 [1 favorite]

In China CCTV plays this lilting gourd flute music during the weather report. I always thought it had alovely, other-worldly quality to it. Then I went to Lijiang where every souvenier shop is hawking gourd flutes, from then on the gourd flute just became a little annoying.
posted by Pollomacho at 6:32 AM on December 18, 2008 [1 favorite]

Aw, shucks, looks like the WeatherStar emulator is out of general release until the author can work some bugs out of it and how it gets along with the .NET framework.

I know so many people who would be complletely, utterly, and without irony genuinely thrilled with a desktop application like this.
posted by Spatch at 8:15 AM on December 18, 2008 [2 favorites]

Aw, shucks, looks like the WeatherStar emulator is out of general release until the author can work some bugs out of it and how it gets along with the .NET framework.

That sucks. Keep an eye on it though, it's a really well-made program and apparently they are adding weather alerts.
posted by ALongDecember at 11:55 AM on December 18, 2008