There’s a saying in meteorology: You’re only as good as your last forecast.
It’s a high-stakes reality that Jason Samenow has become painfully aware of as the founder and chief meteorologist of the Washington-area weather site Capital Weather, formerly known as the Capital Weather Gang. Fortunately, as Samenow tells it, his team has a habit of being right.
“It’s like our Super Bowl when we have a big weather event,” Samenow said. “You’ve got to feed the beast, because that’s when people are the most hungry for content, so we try to provide valuable briefings to help people understand what’s coming.”
Samenow launched the news site as a blog in 2004, three years before the iPhone and its weather app existed. Over the decades, Samenow and his growing team have covered record-breaking snowstorms and hurricanes and even an intense wind event known as a derecho, primarily focusing on Washington and the surrounding region and working with a broader Washington Post team covering national weather and climate. With more than 1 million followers on X, they’ve also developed a local cult following among both weather wonks and everyday readers who just want to know whether their picnic needs to be rescheduled.
“Everybody has a little bit of a weather nerd in them,” said Ian Livingston, a Capital Weather forecaster.
In 2008, the Capital Weather Gang entered a partnership with The Post that lasted until the end of May. After a soft launch, the site is officially relaunching Tuesday as an independent operation, returning to its original name, Capital Weather. Capital Weather will continue to contribute to The Post to provide insights to readers during major local weather events and regional climate stories. The Post’s in-house meteorologist, Ben Noll, will continue to cover major weather events and patterns across the country.
“The Capital Weather Gang is returning to its roots as an independent offering,” a Post spokesperson said in a statement. “The Post remains committed to local coverage, including local weather reporting.”
Samenow said the team had been thinking of returning to its independent roots for more than a year.
“We want to spread our wings and do some more things that I think an independent organization is better positioned to do,” Samenow said. His goals include launching a mobile app, creating more newsletters, establishing a merchandise store, and maybe even expanding to other cities. “We want to become a full-service weather company,” he said. The store is already up and running. “I survived snowcrete” sweatshirts, a reference to the stubborn snow left over from a storm in January, are on sale for $40.
When Samenow started the blog more than 20 years ago, he was still working as a climate change science analyst at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and didn’t have his sights set on growing the site into a full-fledged company. In its early years, the site was a side hustle, supported with the help of Samenow’s meteorological friends.
“Weather doesn’t turn off,” Samenow said. “It was a labor of love.” Now, about a dozen people contribute to the site on a part-time basis, but Samenow said they’re working longer hours to get the new operation off the ground.
The site’s balance of expertise and accessibility is one reason Christoph Mergerson, a University of Maryland assistant professor focused on weather and environmental journalism, has been a loyal reader for years.
“They appeal to people who want to understand the technical aspects of the science behind the weather without alienating people who just want to know if it’s going to rain,” Mergerson said. “That’s not easy to do, but it shows how versatile they are as scientists and communicators.”
Consistent coverage has also been key. Broadcast meteorologists tend to leave a region after a few years, according to Samenow. “We’re not shiny faces on TV,” he said. “We’re authentic.”
Members of the Capital Weather team point to two back-to-back blizzards in February 2010 as the weather event that pushed the blog into the mainstream. “Weather enthusiasts start vibrating when a major snow is being predicted,” said Jeffrey Halverson, a professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Capital Weather’s in-house severe weather expert. “They were rabid for information and clinging on to every one of our updates,” Samenow said.
The first of the blizzards, popularly dubbed “Snowmageddon,” ultimately dumped as much as about three feet of snow across some parts of the region. Samenow said he worked 18-hour days to cover the two storms. “I was working so much that I got sick by the end of the second storm,” he said.
The Capital Weather Gang hasn’t always gotten it right. In 2013, the team predicted a storm would bring five to 10 inches of snow, but the temperature ended up rising a couple degrees higher than expected. As is common in Washington, that small variation changed everything.
“People were mad, because the whole city shut down for what turned out to be less than an inch of slop,” Samenow said. “People accused us of overhyping the storm and purposefully trying to influence schools and governments to shut down.”
Samenow said they learned from their mistake and soon introduced their boom and bust scenarios — respectively, the likelihood that the predicted snow would exceed the most likely amount, and the chance that the storm would fall short of their predictions.
Annual Cherry Blossom coverage has also been a mainstay for years on the blog, including often accurate predictions for peak bloom. Kevin Ambrose, a freelance photographer for the site, had a particular penchant for documenting Stumpy, a hollow tree on the south bank of the Tidal Basin.
In 2024, Ambrose wrote an ode to the tree before it was cut down. “There it was, all by itself, hanging in there year after year, flood after flood. I think people identified it as a survivor,” Ambrose said.
More than anything, the team cares about keeping their audience safe, said Molly Robey, a meteorologist with Capital Weather. In her work, she said she tries to make sure people are prepared for heat and humidity. “We’re always in this field to protect and to serve and to prepare people for severe weather,” she said.
Samenow agreed that doubling down on local coverage to help keep readers safe is one of his primary goals for this new era. Weather is one of the few things that connects everyone, which Samenow said makes it all the more important.
“It’s something we all share together,” he said, “and it’s something that affects us every day, all the time.”
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