I’m addicted to knowing what the weather is like outside every hour of the day so I can prepare for stepping outdoors and maintain the perfect body temperature. My obsession with the weather reached its climax when I lived in the UK where the weather is the number 1 conversational topic, especially during frequently awkward social encounters. I love simultaneously knowing what the weather is like in Cape Town, Johannesburgh and Brighton too. That way I can imagine what I would be doing if I was still living there. Right now in Pittsburgh where I live it’s snowing outside and I wouldn’t even stick a toe out the door, but in Cape Town I can see myself having sundowners and pizza on Camps Bay beach.

Yesterday I installed a fantastic extension to my Firefox browser which displays the weather for 3 days in my status bar. It’s called Forecastfox and it’s highly customisable. Clicking the icons for more details takes me to AccuWeather.com‘s forecast for Pittsburgh in ridiculous but completely understandable detail.

My absolute favourite AccuWeather feature is their RealFeel Temperature.
“The patented, exclusive AccuWeather RealFeel Temperature is an index that describes what the temperature really feels like. It’s a unique composite of everything that affects how warm or cold a person feels, and measures the effects of temperature, wind, humidity, sunshine intensity, cloudiness, precipitation and elevation on the human body.”

Yesterday was supposed to be a warm sunny day for Winter, and it was, except for the fierce arctic wind blowing my hair around like a Troll Doll and nearly causing my body temperature to fall below freezing. Now if I’d checked the RealFeel temperature before going outside I would have been dressed for the occasion. I won’t make that mistake again.

Try it out for your region, wherever you live in the world.