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Been watching the news lately? It’s time to blog the news and current events for June in our Blog Exercises.

For those living on the top of the world, summer is here. For those living down under, the cold is here. There are droughts and floods everywhere, part of the normal fluctuation of the seasons and global climate shifts, or possibly global warming.

The news is weather, too.

A few days ago, a confirmed tornado was reported in McMinnville, Oregon, an hour away from me. Another was reported in Hillsboro, a few miles from my home. This large farming community in Western Oregon isn’t tornado country. For the past month, we’ve been getting daily tornado reports and alls-well assurances from my husband’s family in Oklahoma. Tornadoes happen in Oklahoma. Tornadoes don’t happen in Oregon – well, rarely.

Are you experiencing strange weather?

As you prepare your monthly current events blog post, consider incorporating some aspect of weather news into your post as your Blog Exercise.

In the blog exercise on blogging with the seasons, blogging about weather reports, and the current events posts in February, I asked you to use weather for inspiration on your site, finding connections with weather and your topics. Today, I want you to dive deeper into weather impacts.

This of all the ways weather influences and changes your path in life. Yesterday, a torrential downpour smacked us. I stood outside the door of the college waiting for the rain to pass as the parking lot swiftly turned into a lake. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, we have a rule. If you don’t like the weather, wait 15 minutes for it to change. While I was in a hurry, I chose to let the weather delay me for a few minutes until it lightened. A student from my first WordPress college course came out the door and joined me. It was a wonderful chance to catch up with someone I hadn’t seen in a year and a half and find out where their schooling had taken them. He was graduating in a few days and already had three job offers, though he was seriously debating going out on his own. We talked about it, and maybe I helped him narrow his choices. His insights on the lessons he learned in my class were exactly the words I needed at that moment to remind me that what I’m doing is truly making a difference in the future of web designers and developers. By waiting for the weather, I changed my path, changed my life, and maybe changed his.

Think about how weather influences feelings, emotions, how you feel about yourself and the world around you. When the weather dries and warms up, people tend to go outside more. Think about the outside and emotional connotations and how they relates to your site’s topics.

For the past couple of years, the spring that wouldn’t end, bringing massive rains and flooding well until July, destroyed corn and wheat crops. This year, they are harvesting sooner than planned. Weather changes crop cycles. With the lukewarm winter we had in the Pacific Northwest this year, and a spring heatwave that started in January, the local strawberry, lavender, rose, and other plant and gardening based festivals and holidays are finding the plant-life past its prime or the season over when we should be in prime time. Those who blog about events and regional activities are finding that the reason for the season finished a month ago.

Food buyers, shoppers, chefs, and fresh food fanatics are finding that they have to shift around their buying habits, finding early fruits and vegetables. I talked to one farmer yesterday about her bean crop, the highlight of my summer, only to find out that the heat wave we had made the beans bolt, which means they went to seed faster than they could be controlled and produce adequate fruit.

When we lived on the Gulf Coast of the United States, hurricanes dictated our lives from May to October. We became glued to the weather channel, the weather radio on in the background constantly, awaiting the news that another big one was heading our way. The people who live in places where they are up against mother nature for vast amounts of the year are either simpletons or incredibly brave and determined. I vote for the latter, but there were some moments during my long stay in these areas when I thought that we were the idiots. Weather changes your character without a doubt.

While we like to think that modern technology is not impacted by weather, it often is. Go deeper than before and look at how weather is impacting and changing how your industry works.

As usual, make it connect with your audience and your blog topics.

Remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.

You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.

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