Nothing captures our attention more or gets us moving faster than the weather. It doesn’t matter where we live, how old we are or what we do for a living, we share a common concern about what the weather is going to be like today, tomorrow and the rest of the week.

If you live in Alabama, for instance, and snow is in the forecast you’ll probably stop by a grocery store on the way home and load up on milk, bread and sandwich treats. After all, nobody wants to be caught hungry while trapped at home in a snow bank without electricity!

Despite the severity of the forecast, however, we all can breathe a sigh of relief because of modern technology and the opportunities it gives us to be prepared no matter what falls out of the sky.

A visit to weather.com on the Internet is an eye-opener for anyone who desires to bone up on the latest weather forecast.

You can find out what the weather is like right now as well as what it is expected to be like tonight, tomorrow, over the weekend, five days later, 10 days out or for the remainder of the month.

That’s not all. You can view the forecast on video or check it out on a map.

The website also offers advice on the best time to go fishing, boating or traveling. It will even give you a pollen count or let you know when and what to plant in a vegetable garden.

Interesting historical information is also available.

For example, you can determine what the chances are that the state in which you live will have a white Christmas by looking at some historic data.

Snow is a given if you live in Alaska. Residents of Thompson Pass were buried under 60 inches on Dec. 29, 1955. You can forget it if you live in Hawaii. Its residents have never experienced snowfall on December 25, or any other day. However, NASA satellite images revealed white caps on the peaks of the big island in January 2005.

Sadly, scientific weather forecasting didn’t exist 75 years ago. But that didn’t keep folks from referring to the Old Farmer’s Almanac or look at the sky at sundown to judge what the next day’s weather would be like.