Why should I Register for an account on Big Bend Weather?

By registering for an account (UserID and Password), you will be able to participate in all of our social features and submit weather observations to our community weather database; Members can Post and Reply to messages in our Discussion Forums; You'll have access all the Comunity Social features such as uploading photos, add calendar entries and much more. An account is simply a UserID and Password, to enable you to login to the site and a personal profile similar to those on other social sites.

Below is a help document with screen shots which can be used should you have any Registration questions.

Step 1. Browse to any page on www.bigbendweather.com, locate and click the "Register" link near the top right of any page.

This will open a "Modal" (Popup) Window where you enter the basic information needed to create an account.

2. Carefully fill out each field in the Registration form. Fields that display a red asterisk next to them are required fields. For additional help about any field, hover your mouse over the "Information Icon" (Lower Case "i" enclosed in a gray circle) which will open the information panel, providing details on the specific item such as the "User Name" example below:

 If you wish to "Pin" this or any other information panel, to keep it visible but out of the way, locate the gray "Push Pin" icon in the upper left corner of the information panel and click once. When you slightly move your mouse away, but still over the panel, the mouse pointer will turn into a "4 ended arrow". You can now press and hold with the left mouse button, drag it to a new location and then release. (This is something that is seldom, if ever needed, but could possibly be helpful in certain situations).

Below is a list of fields on the Registration form with descriptions, hints and suggestions. As you enter your information, when it is "acceptable", or meets the requirements for the specific field, a green check will show at the end of the entry box. If there is a problem or a form field was accidentally skipped, a red "information panel" will appear with additional information.

• User Name: The User name is the name on the account and is used in conjunction with your password to login to the site. Your "User Name" should be 6-8 characters or more. If the selected User Name is already in use, please try a different one or select from a list of suggested names which will appear.
• Password: We now require an 11 character password for additional security. As you enter a password, a colored indicator bar will appear showing the strength from "weak to strong". It is recommended you use a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and one or more non-alphanumeric characters.
• Confirm Password: Please re-enter your password. If it does not match, a popup will alert you.
• Display Name: The Display Name, sometimes called a screen name or handle, is the name that will appear next to things such as Forum posts, photo uploads, etc. Suggestion: As this site is scientific in nature and is more of a professional forum and as many members may know each other, it is suggested you use either part of your real name or something others will know you by.
• Email Address: Please carefully enter your email address. Once you Register, an email will be sent to you with a link you must click to verify your account. We will NEVER disclose your email address to anyone. For more information about your email address and other profile information, see *Privacy at the end of this tutorial.  
• Security Code: We use Google reCAPTCHA where users can almost always prove they are not a robot by a single click in the box instead of trying to solve those hard to read captcha's. The security code" box is hidden by the Google reCAPTCHA and is only used as a fallback should Google be unavailable (of which I doubt that will ever occur).

After everything is filled in and Google reCAPTCHA has a green check, click the "Register" button one time. Please wait while the system prepares your verification email and confirms it has been sent. Please do not browse away from the page until the system responds or the registration may fail.

Please be patient and wait a few minutes to receive an email which includes a verification link (this should only take a few minutes at most ). If you do not see it after a few minutes, please check your SPAM folder. If you haven't received your verification email within 2 hours, please contact us using the Contact form on the home page and we will immediately take care of this. (we have discovered that bigbend.net will occasionally delay "web originated" email by almost 90 minutes.)

When your verification email arrives, it will be similar to the below message:

Step 2. After you receive an email with a verification link as above, please click the link and a banner will display on the page saying you have successfully verified your account as below:

If you are still currently logged in, after clicking the link, it should direct you to your profile page and if you are not currently logged in, you will be directed to the login page. Please login (if not already) and complete the registration details on your profile. You can easily find your profile by clicking on your User Name in the upper right corner (where the Register link previously displayed). All we ask for to complete the registration is your *name, state and country and accept the default time zone if correct. (*name - your name is only used for our records so we know who has write privileges on our site). In your Profile Basic Settings, please enter your first and last name (fields with a red asterisk are required fields). Note: Each Profile section can be collapsed or expanded by clicking the up or down arrow on the right end of the Profile section name.

After you enter the required information in a section, you may collapse it if desired or leave it as is and expand the next profile section and scroll down if needed. You do not need to Update (save the settings) until you have completed all applicable sections. Next, please expand the Location Information and enter the Country, State and Verify the Time Zone setting is correct. Tip for US residents: click once in the Country box and press the "u" key 5 times and then click the "Enter" key to bring up the United States quickly. By entering the country first, you can then quickly use the drop down box for the State in the same manner, but only clicking "t" twice (I'm sure many people know this but many do not and if you have entered as many of these dang things as I have over the years, you will go to any extreme to streamline the process). These 3 items are the only other required items to register for an account. The Time Zone field is critical for properly displaying many "time" elements which are typically using a UTC setting. The server software then converts it to the user's local time zone. The Country and State fields are also necessary for some items to display as expected. Many applications today will "Ask for your location" to adjust the view of the application. By entering your Country and State, any apps on Big Bend Weather will display correctly and without "nagging" for your location as some other sites do.

The remainder of the items are optional with the exception of the GIS section for those wishing to add records to our community weather database. The GIS section with the information popup for Latitude is shown below. Note that I highlighted the web address to use for determining your latitude, longitude and elevation. It is possible to copy this address from the popup but you may need to select and copy it prior to pinning it as it is in the below screenshot.

Below is a view of the GIS section, with an example showing each field entered properly (this example uses fictitious coordinates - You must determine the location where your weather observations will be made and enter them in your profile). Please notice the "eye" icon at the end of the form fields below. These do not display during your initial registration, but can be accessed the first time you login. By clicking the Down Arrow on the "eye" icon, it will open a panel where you can select Admin only, All Users, Registered Users and Friends and Groups. Personally, I always fill out all the personal profile fields and initially set the visibility to Admin only and then choose some I wish to share with friends and some that I am willing to share with various groups I belong to and configure them accordingly. I have no problem sharing things like my telephone number with any other users, even though I might not want it openly visible on the Internet. When you choose visibility for any of the groups, friends or even all registered users, it will never be visible on the site for any casual or anonymous user nor will it be picked up by any searches or search engines. By having a UserID/Password, you will have access to sections and data that will not be accessible to search engines or anonymous users.

Setup Optional groups such as BiBeCoWx network. ( 1 minute ( up to 3 minutes if looking up latitude, longitude and elevation for BiBeCoWx membership)) .After you have completed the registration and have authorized your account, optional groups such as the BiBeCoWx network can be easily configured by the User. All groups and subscriptions are configured from your Profile Settings page. To access your profile, login to the site and open it by clicking your User Name in the top right (where the register link previously displayed) and click the Edit Profile Button where you can edit or add to your profile and manage any additional groups or services.

For BiBeCoWx participates only: make sure you enter your location info in your profile (Click the Edit Button and expand the section named GIS and enter your location info (https://www.freemaptools.com/elevation-finder.htm - This is for the location where you will take weather samples) and then be sure to click the "Update" button to save your new profile information. After you save your location info, please review it in your profile to make sure it was correctly saved. Please configure this information prior to joining BiBeCoWx.

To add any services, such as joining the BiBeCoWx group, click the "Manage Services" tab where you will find the "RSVP Code:" entry box. Enter the code you received and click the "Subscribe" button. You will then have immediate access to the group and can "Add New Records" on the weather database, be able to upload photos to the gallery and ask questions or reply on the forums.

If you have any problems, questions or comments, you may contact me via the web form on the home page, or after you have registered and can login, you can send a private message, post a question in the appropriate Forum or contact me by regular email ( my email address will be visible after you login). Below is a tutorial with images on registering and joining a group on so you can see what information is needed.

Some additional Tips and help.

Tip: if any modal window is not completely visible, such as if the Register and Cancel buttons are off-screen, you can try any of several different methods to resize, move or scroll to gain access to the buttons should they be off-screen.

You should now be able to easily use the scroll bars to move the content up of down.

You can also manually resize the modal popup using the "hatched" triangle icon in the lower right corner as below: