Happy April Fools Day!  Well, you know I’m not in the business of fooling anyone, but if I were to be mischevious, what kind of a weather prank could I play?

Every year I try to think of something fun to pull on my friends.  I’ve yet to find anything truly funny.  All ideas will be reviewed.  They don’t have to be weather related.  I’m in search of laughter!

What have you done that turned out to be funny?  Share it here with everyone.

Thanks,

Phillip Williams

I am so excited about my new blog. There are very few things in life that I love more than food. By no means am I an excellent chef but the purpose of my blog is to share some of the good recipes that I have made and eaten through the years. Let me first be very honest and say that many of the recipes I plan on sharing with you are not ones that I have created or thought of on my own. However, I have sampled or cooked them and I would love to pass on my favorite delicious and easy recipes to you. Please feel free to post any comments or ideas about similar recipes and what you think works well too. I hope you enjoy.

My first recipe I would like to share with you is Paula Deen’s Green Bean Bundles. It’s extremely simple but very delicious.

Ingredients:
2 bags of frozen whole Green Beans.
1 Package of Bacon (not turkey bacon)
Brown Sugar
Tooth picks

How to make it:
Make sure beans are thawed. Grab about 8-10 beans and wrap one strip of bacon around them. Place a tooth pick in the bundle to hold it together. Place as many as you can/want in a baking dish. Sprinkle with brown sugar (as much as you want, in my opinion you can never have too much). Depending how many you make bake at 375 for about 30-40 minutes or until bacon is cooked. Take out of oven and eat!!!! =0) Delicious with most dishes!

I am so excited about my new blog. There are very few things in life that I love more than food. By no means am I an excellent chef but the purpose of my blog is to share some of the good recipes that I have made and eaten through the years. Let me first be very honest and say that many of the recipes I plan on sharing with you are not ones that I have created or thought of on my own. However, I have sampled or cooked them and I would love to pass on my favorite delicious and easy recipes to you. Please feel free to post any comments or ideas about similar recipes and what you think works well too. I hope you enjoy.

My first recipe I would like to share with you is Paula Deen’s Green Bean Bundles. It’s extremely simple but very delicious.

Ingredients:
2 bags of frozen whole Green Beans.
1 Package of Bacon (not turkey bacon)
Brown Sugar
Tooth picks

How to make it:
Make sure beans are thawed. Grab about 8-10 beans and wrap one strip of bacon around them. Place a tooth pick in the bundle to hold it together. Place as many as you can/want in a baking dish. Sprinkle with brown sugar (as much as you want, in my opinion you can never have too much). Depending how many you make bake at 375 for about 30-40 minutes or until bacon is cooked. Take out of oven and eat!!!! =0) Delicious with most dishes!

I love Cinderella!

What started out as the most wonderful time of the year – March Madness – has turned into a bracket buster disaster. I personally, am beyond frustrated, since TWO of my Final Four teams are gone. Tennessee let me down. And so did Georgetown. However, I will let that one slide because I have become the biggest Davidson bandwagon fan. I admit it, and without my Deacs in there, I had to find someone to cheer for. And I was lucky enough to have a boyfriend, the fabulous Kyle Holliday, who had tickets to the first AND second round games last weekend in Raleigh.  So, we got up at o-dark-hundred, which is not really early for most people, but anything before 9am is early to me and made our way to Raleigh. I had a BLAST.

Those Davidson fans were so great! They were loud and fun and excited the entire game. And I can’t forget the best part, when the band broke out in Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”. The entire coliseum burst into song. It was great. My favorite player of the tournament – hands down Stephen Curry. What would you expect from Dell Curry’s kid. He could not miss – and he still can’t. 103 points in three games. Unbelievable. I know Seth Greenberg is kicking himself for not recruiting him!

Now to the Tarholes. I am still not convinced that they are unbeatable, but they sure are quick. TV does not do them justice. I still think Tyler Hansbrough is not what everyone makes him out to be, I think the rest of the team is just that good. Poor Mt. St. Marys, those fans were so good to their team the entire game.

Georgetown was decent. I was sadly not impressed with Roy Hibbert. Not much excitement during that game and the only things I liked about the Indiana/Arkansas game was Indiana’s striped warm-up pants and Arkansas’ mascot.

Now, to things that irritate the fire out of me. I feel I am a smart person when it comes to picking the better teams and stuff, not that my brackets reflect that obviously, but what irks me beyond belief is the fact that there are people in both my pools who are KILLING me who know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about sports. They’re the kind of people who pick teams because they like their colors or their furry mascots. And THOSE people are the ones who end up winning. So ridiculous.

Two final four teams still alive – and Cinderella continues dancing, we’ll check back in next week.

If you enjoy warm, sunny days, please take advantage of Thursday and Friday!  A subtropical (warm) ridge of high pressure, anchored off the Southeast U.S. Coast, will pump southwest winds and warm air to Eastern Carolina.  I expect a high near 76 Thursday and near 81 (inland) Friday.

You mustn’t get used to the warmth!  By this weekend, a polar (cold) high pressure system will build into Eastern Canada and push chilly air down the East Coast.  Earlier this week, it appeared that this high would be weak enough such that the chillier air wouldn’t be quite able to reach North Carolina.  Now it appears that the polar high will be just strong enough to force the chill all the way into North Carolina.  This small change will mean a big drop in temperatures in the East by Saturday and Sunday.  Are you sitting down?  I expect 50s for highs for both days!!!

The weather in Eastern Carolina these next few days should remind you that March is indeed a time of seasonal transition in North Carolina.  Elements of both summer and winter weather can exist in back-to-back days, and just a small change in the wind can mean a big change in sensible weather. 

Hello everyone, I’m Storm Team 9 Chief Meteorologist Phillip Williams. 

The topic of this blog is the “zonal jet stream.“  Ok, before you yawn and click away, let me tell you a little about it and why it will affect our weather this week.

You’ve heard of the jet stream before and how it is the flow of air up high over us where the jets fly.  When the jet stream curves it can help produce storm systems that bring us rain.  When the jet stream flattens out from the west coast to the east coast, then it is in a zone.  This zonal jet stream flow doesn’t allow storm systems to form.  That means we get dry, beautiful weather.

So, the zonal jet stream this week will give us mostly clear nights and mostly sunny days.  With the strength of the late March sun, we should hit or come close to 70 degrees late Wednesday and in the 70’s on Thursday and Friday.

One thing I will be watching for late in the week is that the jet stream may begin to curve southward over the east coast.  If that happens, we could be in for a backdoor cold front by the weekend which would knock down our temperatures and cloud up our skies.  I’ll keep you posted through the week.

Hey, do you have any topics you want me to discuss?  Pollen?  Severe Weather?  TV?  Sports?  Food?  Ok, maybe I should stick with weather topics.

Take care and thanks for reading my blog.

Phillip Williams

The NCAA Tournament never dissapoints the sports fan.
The drama is unbelievable. The last second shots. The upsets. March Madness is truly a thing of beauty.
How are your brackets as we head to the “Sweet 16”? I’ve still got my Final Four, with North Carolina, Texas, Kansas and UCLA all surviving. UCLA barely got by. North Carolina is the top overall seed in the tournament, and the Tar Heels certainly played that part this weekend with two blowout wins.
The four seeds in the East now head to Charlotte. I think North Carolina will be tested by Washington State, but the Heels are playing the best basketball in the tournament by far. I’ve got Kansas to beat UNC, but I’m not so sure after watching this past weekend’s play.
The ACC has only one team in the “Sweet 16”. Duke’s upset loss to West Virginia was a huge sirprise. The Devils are good when their threes are falling. When they didn’t fall, Duke was certainly vulnerable.
Enjoy the tournament when it gets back in gear on Thursday night. There’s really nothing like it.
“March Madness” should lead into some kind of Final Four that first week of April.  BB

It’s the most wonderful time of the year - March Madness! Sadly, there are two downsides to this: 1) Wake Forest didn’t make it and 2) This means extra late nights because of basketball games on WNCT. I don’t think I can complain this year though, I have first round tickets to the four games in Raleigh!! Yay! Again, one downside: I have to sit and watch the Tarholes play. And in keeping with the spirit of the season, I have my Final Four picks - straight from my ESPN and Facebook brackets.

East: Tennessee. They have impressed me. Chris Lofton is sick, but if he has one bad game, they are done. I’m still a fan. And Bruce Pearl is probably the most school-spirited coach in the world. Anyone who paints their chest for a women’s game should automatically get brownie points – and maybe a few extra calls. Go Team.

Midwest: Georgetown. Everything about them impresses me. Their guards, their coach, Roy Hibbert and Patrick Ewing Jr.

South: Memphis. I really hope this is their year to shine. Even though they play in Conference USA, which has a less than stellar teams, they played a strong non-conference schedule, which should give them an idea of what they’re up against. I really think this year is theirs for the taking.

West: UCLA. Two words; Kevin Love. What a great freshman, PAC-10 Freshman AND Player of the Year.  Oh yea, his uncle is Mike Love from The Beach Boys. And Darren Collison - two times in the final four - this year he should win it all.

And who will win it all you may ask? I got UCLA.

Keeping with the basketball theme – I’ll give my two cents about what ECU should do about their coach. I say give Mac another year or so. He won FIVE conference games – five more than they won the past two years combined. He has a brand-new team and even though they had a losing record, I think Terry Holland should give him the benefit of the doubt. Go Pirates!

I’ll let ya know how the Tournament goes! Happy Easter to everyone! Have a great weekend!

Hello, I’m Storm Team 9 Chief Meteorologist Phillip Williams. 

Have you seen it?  Of course you have!  Pollen!  It’s everywhere now.  I’ve either got a cold or am having a reaction to the pollen.  I’ve been sneezing and sniffling and coughing the last couple of days.  Outside of our Greenville studios there is a big light that shows pollen blowing in the air at night.  Fortunately, it is raining as I type this Wednesday night.  Rain helps to wash the pollen out of the air.

Rain washing away the pollen sounds terrific, but as soon as the rain stops, the pollen starts spreading again.  Of course, pollen can cause hay fever and allergy symptoms, but it is serving a good purpose too.  The wind blows the pollen to fertilize other plants so that new plants can grow.  Bees and insects can also carry pollen on their bodies from plant to plant to fertilize them.

If you would like to keep track of pollen in your area, I’ve found a website that you might like.  I’m not endorsing this as the only site with pollen information, but it is one I ran across that you might like.  It is pollen.com. 

Sneezingly yours,

Phillip Williams

Selection Sunday is one of the magical days of the sports year.

Teams across the nation gather to fill in their brackets, finding out just where their run in the tournament will take them.

I was coming home from Charlotte on Sunday and decided to stop for dinner, and to watch the NCAA pairings show on CBS.

I plugged up my Garmin, and it indicated that I had just passed an Applebees about a mile back. I turned around in Lexington, North Carolina to watch the show.

I pulled up and saw a bus with people departing. I thought about leaving, not wanting to battle a crowd. I decided to at least check it out.

The first person I saw was North Carolina Coach Roy Williams. The ACC Tournament champions were also making a stop in Lexington. I shook hands with the coach, and then took a seat about five feet away. ACC Tournament MVP Tyler Hansbrough stood just behind me. Danny Green and Quentin Thomas were right across the bar area. There were very few people in the restaurant, so it was almost like a private party for the Heels, with me as an out of place guest.

The first announcement during the selection show was the tournament’s number one seed, which was North Carolina. The Tar Heel players let out a cheer. They would start the tourney at number one!

Carolina’s destination and first round opponent brought little reaction. Everyone pretty much knew that UNC would play in Raleigh. Under the pod system, many felt that Duke would also play at the RBC Center, but that wasn’t the case, as the Devils head to Washington, DC. North Carolina will play the play-in game winner. That game is Tuesday night, with Coppin State taking on Mt. St. Mary’s.

That winner will be the sacrificial lamb to UNC on Friday night at 7:10 in Raleigh.

By the way, my Final Four includes UNC, UCLA, Texas and Kansas.

Enjoy the games, and check our our bracket challenge and our live NCAA scoreboard at WNCT.com!

BB