Dunno how I missed this thread originally... It's serendipitous that's resurfaced today, as I was going to post about being in the paper Sunday.
My current most helpful initiative is to become friends with the local PG&E meteorologist. He does live weather on the local AM drive time news 6 times a morning on week days, sends out a daily email forecast, publishes a column in the Sunday paper, and is regularly quoted in other weather features in the paper.
All of those garner SLOweather regular mention for rain totals, temperature extremes etc.
As a former regular magazine article writer (including one in WeatherWise) I know how hard it can be to come up with fresh topics, especially when you need to come up with a new one every week.
So, I invited him to accompany me a week ago Saturday up to Condor Lookout on Hi Mountain in the Los Padres NF to redeploy a cellular WeatherElement unit.
That got the Lookout, me, and SLOweather great press in his
Sunday column yesterday.
(
Condor Lookout is a refurbished USFS fire lookout now dedicated to California Condor tracking and research. It's at 3,190', and has views from the Sierra to the Pacific Ocean. The site is all solar and proane powered, so my WeatherElement interface runs on 12VDC and uses a cellular router to send data to the server.)
Along those lines, find out if any of the local weather people (tv, radio, newspaper) have a stable of "weather watchers" and join them. Use your URL as your ID.
If there is one of those free local weekly alternative papers or magazines around that you see on every news stand, volunteer to write a weekly feature for them.
If ANYTHING remarkable weather-wise is recorded on your station, use the media news tip lines to let them know quickly. Most local media are so hamstrung for reporters, they'll welcome the input. Become an NWS Weather Spotter and then include your ID number in your news tips. That might give you some street cred.
I've gotten a lot of exposure by having a lightning tracker and page. It helps that thunderstorms are fairly rare here so when we get one it's news. A big storm here a few years ago got me on TV as well as in the paper.
I've done a couple of other things.... I had SLOweather.com pens made and passed them out and left them in banks and grocery stores. Also business cards... Either one is good for passing out when chatting up your site to someone. it's always a rush to talk with someone and have them already know about your site.
Start a weather blog. It's amazing how many people will find your posts in a Google search. I just made a good contact with a local hay farmer who owns 2 Davis stations through a post he found from 3 years ago.