First of all, I want to thank the hundreds of readers coming here every week! Because of you, the writers for the Examiner can continue their work, and the more you visit, the more we will write for your enjoyment and information.

Secondly, as a lifelong weather lover, my goals have always been to take the complex science of meteorology and make it easier to understand for the general public. That's what I did for 23 years in television and continue to do on MAX FM radio in Cincinnati (97.7 and 99.5 FM), which you can listen to online anywhere. I'll be doing a weekly segment on MAX FM highlighting the current research and observations involving weather and climate so you can better understand where we're heading. Our first installment, if all goes well (it's "live"), is Friday morning at 9:40 am (eastern time) and we'll be doing that every Friday at 9:40 am, for 20 minutes...so you'll get some good information. We'll even be taking a few phone calls if you have questions.

You won't see me doing detailed research because that's not my specialty, nor do I have the time to do the thorough job that is done by paid researchers. It's their job, and many do it well, although we're always looking at who is paying for the research to ascertain potential biases. What I like to do, and apparently you like to read, is bring the big news and research stories together here and add my own experience and expertise in a plain-language story that everyone from children to the elderly can understand.

The amazing thing for me, and I practically live online, is the flood of information coming out every day from all corners of the world. That's why I am having to do these articles, the radio broadcasts and weekly podcasts (looking for sponsors for those) to cover everything...and even then, there is a plenty that I leave out since it can be overwhelming and is often too technical to have much meaning for you.

Since I'll be doing the first radio show tomorrow, and have new articles with all kinds of new data next week, I'll keep this update brief. For those in the Cincinnati area, from which this article originates, the average temperature for month of July 2009 (69.6) is solidly below the old record of 70.7 degrees from 1947 and there is nothing over the next 8 days that will change that. I am predicting the average temperature to be around 70.2 degrees, breaking the old average by a full .50 degree. That may not seem like much because it's an average, but it will be the coldest July ever and it will represent a total of 380 degrees below normal or 12.3 degrees per day! As for rainfall, we're right on track and assuming we get another inch before the end of next week, we'll end the month with normal rainfall...but it's worth noting that we have at least 4 more days with rain likely, so we may follow June's lead and finish well above normal in rainfall.

How about this? We typically hit 90 degrees 8 times in July in Cincinnati. This month we will not reach 90 once! Beyond that, we haven't even reached a "normal" high this month, and we will not do so before the end of the month. We have had 5 days with October level readings (highs in the 60s to low 70s), and there were 3 days with record cold high temperatures...so far.

Globally, we have more information on cooling ocean temperatures, flat sea-levels (no rises that were predicted by the climate models), thousands of record cold temperatures being set (in the United States alone) and monster winter storms in South America in places that haven't seen such snow and cold in nearly a century. Oh, and the sun has been blank for 12 straight days, with an occasional weak sunspot trying to develop...and we're nearly 200 days beyond the duration of a typical (485 days) solar minimum. Think about that. In a few months our minimum will be more than a year past the norm and there are still no signs of the new cycle beginning.

More soon!