Four years ago, today, Harvey re-formed in the Gulf of Mexico. This set the stage for a historic flooding event that would change parts of Houston and the upper Texas coast forever. Harvey also put Space City Weather on the map—since then this site has transformed from a small-time hobby to something many people and institutions in Houston and beyond rely upon. Matt and I are humbled by this, and we view Space City Weather as a public service. For this reason we’ve grown concerned about missing out on the nearly 40 percent of Houston for whom Spanish is a native language.
So we are legitimately thrilled to announce the creation of Tiempo Ciudad Espacial, or TCE, as a Spanish-language version of our website. To accomplish this we are partnering with Maria Sotolongo, a longtime Texas meteorologist who is fluent in Spanish. Like Matt and myself, Maria is passionate about getting people reliable information before and during storms.
Therefore Maria will, on, a daily basis, write an independent forecast on TCE. This will be part translation, part interpretation, of what appears on Space City Weather in a format curated for a Spanish-language audience. It is our hope that people who are more comfortable reading in Spanish will find this service helpful.
Here is a little bit from Maria about her background, in English, and then an explanation of what she hopes to bring to TCE in Spanish:
If you don’t speak Spanish, nothing is going to change. Occasionally, however, Maria may fill in for Matt or myself with an English-language post. She might also brighten up our social media channels or even cajole one or both of us into producing more videos. Matt and I are excited to have some extra help.
I want to thank Reliant, which is sponsoring TCE in addition to Space City Weather. We are kind of jumping into the unknown here, and don’t really know what audience exists for this product. So if you know someone who speaks Spanish, primarily, please pass along this news!
Fantástico, es lo que necesitábamos
Enhorabuena por esta gran idea y mucha suerte
I love the name! I can barely read Spanish but I will be practicing on TCE!
Katy debería evacuar??
This is what the internet is for.
🤣 I don’t speak Spanish, but I sure knew what this means
Bienvenida Maria Sotolongo, Muy agradecido con SCW por pensar en los Latinos. Thank you Eric and Matt for all you do when it comes to the weather here in Houston. I will pass on the information to friends and family that feel more comfortable reading in Spanish.
This was a fun IT exercise to complete, and I’m really happy with the results: TCE is a separate WP instance that runs on the same physical server as SCW, and uses the same hurricane-tested infrastructure stack as SCW (Cloudflare + Haproxy + Varnish + Nginx + php-fpm + mariaDB + WP), so just like SCW it should stay online and responsive even under a Hurricane Harvey or Hurricane Laura amount of traffic. Enjoy! 🙂
(If anybody wants a quick tech overview on how SCW—and now also TCE—is hosted, here’s the piece I wrote last year after Hurricane Laura missed us and we had a few biiiiig traffic days!)
Wonderful!
That is fantastic that you are doing this for our Spanish-speaking neighbors.
I am very excited about this. First and foremost – super happy that our fellow Houstonians who speak only/primarily Spanish will now be able to avail themselves of this valuable service you provide. From a selfish POV, I work on my Spanish by trying to read Spanish news and literature without translation so now I can try this first in Spanish and if I miss something, I can pop on over to the O.G. SCW.
Awesome, really proud of Houston to have the desire for this kind of coverage!
I think this is wonderful! Knowledge is power, they say, and weather knowledge is the power to protect ourselves and others!
Congratulations!
This is a great service. Thank you! The Spanish speaking population is one the Office of Emergency Management has struggled to reach for years. This could make a big difference.
Awesome… and another way to practice my Spanish as a non-native language reader! Thank you.
Congratulations. Sounds like an excellent move.
Terrific idea. You all are already excellent. The addition of TCE is brilliant. Thank you & good luck!
Felicidades!
Well, boys, without apology, the Spanish Edition will become known as Houston’s Pretty Weather.
Bravo María, te felicito por esta excelente iniciativa! And, congrats to Matt and Eric for adding such a knowledgeable resource that connects both with the Spanish-speaking audience and mainstream market. Great partnership indeed!
Maria !!! Muchos éxitos!!!
THIS IS AMAZING! Thank you!!
Awesome news!! Expanding important information across the Houston area ❤️ You guys are great!