7/2 - 12:30pm - Cloudy and Cool in July, Ryan Weather Transition

It's July 2nd, but you'd never know it by taking a walk outside. We're at 68 degrees right now and I don't think we'll get much above 70 because of the cloud cover across the region this afternoon. Clouds should finally move away tomorrow and temperatures should return to seasonable levels, which means the mid 80's.

Rain for Saturday is still in question at this point. The latest NAM run shoves the rain south of here and keeps us dry for the most part, but the GFS is still insistent on giving us a moderate rain on Saturday afternoon and maybe into the evening. The GFS also gives us a pretty good shot of rain on Sunday too. I'm still not convinced that we'll see as much rain as the GFS is giving us, so we'll give it another day before a July 4th forecast is firmed up.

This Saturday's video forecast will be the very last one that I'll do for Ryan Weather. With a two-week vacation coming up and college starting next month, I can't continue to do Louisville weather anymore. Here's how this transition is going to work:

• Ryanweather.org will turn into a online résumé for my upcoming career, also available at http://ryanhoke.com. Storm chasing photos, archived Ryan Weather forecast videos, and any news that comes up will be posted there as well.
• This blog will continue on, but posts will not be centered around Louisville weather as they have been. Expect posts about what I'm learning about in my upcoming meteorology classes, college life at Mississippi State, weather news, and anything else that's going on. Posts will likely not be as frequent as they have been, maybe a post every few days at worst. Regular Louisville weather postings will cease on July 10th.
  
• The storm chasing blog will still be up and running as usual when I'm in Tornado Alley next spring.

I'm still in the process of designing and coding my new website, so it may take a few weeks to get everything switched over and running. I really wish I could continue forecasting for the Louisville area, but it wouldn't be practical to do it from Starkville, MS, especially if my college life gets really busy. I'll still be around on Facebook, Twitter, and my blog. It's been a pleasure to run my website and blog over the past two and a half years, and I'd like to thank everyone who's been checking them out.

I'll likely be back doing forecast videos again in a couple years at Mississippi State, but the big leagues are not far away either. I started this website in 2007 to help me get accustomed to working on-air and delivering weather information to viewers, with the hope that I could get ahead in a field where competition is fierce. Needless to say, the site went far beyond its original intentions.

It will be bittersweet to complete my final video this Saturday, but I'm extremely excited to be moving on to getting my meteorology degree and starting my broadcast career immediately after. Broadcast meteorology requires moving around the country quite a bit for at least the first few years, but I'd like to come back to Louisville at some point. Who knows, maybe the right job opening will come up here in town and it'll be like old times again!