As you may have noticed, we announced last week that we would have daily and continuing weather coverage here at ThisWeekinWorcester.com.
Providing that coverage to us is meteorologist Rob Lightbown of Route20Weather.com and Crown Weather Services.
We would like to introduce Rob officially to our readers and asked him to tell you a little about himself. Please read on below and please continue to check-in each day for your local weather forecasts.
Who Is Route 20 Weather?
My name is Rob Lightbown, I am the owner, weather forecaster, cook and bottle washer of Route 20 Weather.
Let me tell you a little about myself:
I have always loved studying the weather. I was watching thunderstorms with fascination at the age of 4. During elementary and middle school, I used to hand draw my own weather maps and present the daily weather to my class. I was the kid always staring out the window looking at the weather. In fact, you’ll still find me doing this same thing on most days.
My professional weather forecasting career began right after I graduated High School in 1992. For a little over 3 years, I was a student intern with the National Weather Service in Caribou, Maine. In that position, I learned how to analyze the weather patterns, write a daily weather forecast, observe every day weather conditions and present those findings to individuals, including pilots, farmers and anyone else who needed weather information.
In the Winter of 1994, I formed Crown Weather Services. Crown Weather Services tracks and forecasts tropical storm and hurricane activity across the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. I have been forecasting tropical storms and hurricanes for over 25 years and have covered important hurricanes, including Opal (1995), Fran (1996), Floyd (1999), Katrina & Rita (2005), Ike (2008), Irene (2011), Sandy (2012), Irma & Maria (2017) and Michael (2018).
In addition, I have lived in New England all my life and have built extensive experience forecasting New England weather. I grew up on the New Hampshire seacoast, then lived in the northern part of Maine for 26 years before moving to Springfield in the summer of 2017. You could say that I have over 40 years of experience forecasting the weather in New England.
My wife, Meg, and I moved to Springfield in June of 2017 because we became tired of the long, cold, brutal winters of northern Maine. I quickly figured out that the weather coverage in Western and Central Mass. is sorely lacking and I wanted to fill that gap.
I started Route 20 Weather in August, 2018 with a goal to use all of my weather forecasting experience and provide Worcester and the rest of Central Mass with accurate, timely and honest weather forecasts.
My philosophy with forecasting the weather is simple. Integrity, honesty, clarity and accountability is everything to me. I work hard to deliver weather information that is simple and easy to understand, without the hype and noise that comes from many forms of media. If a forecast is wrong, I hold myself accountable for that. I have very high levels of standard in what I do.
I strongly believe that those of you in Central Mass. deserve a forecast that explains potential outcomes, in order to protect the lives of people and property. My commitment with you, the Route 20 Weather reader, is to provide a top notch, value added weather service, that meets or exceeds your expectations.
Finally, know that Route 20 Weather is personal, dedicated and experienced. I am not a giant weather corporation; just the opposite, Route 20 Weather is just one person (me) giving you weather information that is valuable and potentially life saving.
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