The site also includes links to weather headlines and current conditions. As long as your electricity stays on, you can follow El Nino's wrath. If your weather channel lacks that certain je ne sais quoi, the Franklin Institute has just the quoi you might be looking for. At the Institute's smart weather education site, the writing is clear, the graphics cool and crisp. Concise articles teach how weather forms, how radar tracks it, what those satellite maps mean, and how to set up your own personal weather station.
Brief movies show weather in action.
And, if you really need to know today whether to take your brollie or wear your galoshes, you can link to local reports and forecasts. With more than 7,000 close-up photographs of flowers, searchable by their botanic names or in a variety of languages, it should eliminate some of the guesswork in next spring's plantings. The database has its limitations, though. If you need to know a plant's soil or sun requirements, how drought tolerant it is, how invasive it might be, its growing season, or zone recommendations, you're just plain out of luck. Still, most databases that offer those details can't match the range of varieties found here.