TR Forums

I love following the weather. I'm addicted to it. If it's a drought, cool... if it's a hurricane 1,500 miles away that in two weeks will leave me wet for five days at a time, cool! I want to know about it.

What weather resources do you guys use? I will watch the WCCO weather in the evening if there is something big going to happen, but I've gotten pretty good at making calls on my own from some other resources.

For prediction I use weather.com maps. Their automated predictions are terrible, but the maps are great.

for finding out precip totals and comparing predictions to values I use the St. Paul Climatological Observator web site. It's about 5 miles from where I live, and is where I work.

For tracking storms I like to watch them from the dakotas and figure out when they will hit. I've gotten very good at guessing when the front will land over my head, much better than weather.com or the news stations, who generally say very broad stuff anyways so they aren't so wrong.

Anybody else pay attention to the weather too much for their own good?

When there is bad weather coming through, I keep weather.com open at the radar when I'm at work, and I just refresh it every 15 minutes or so. Gives me an idea of what the day is shaping up to be like, and whether I need my umbrella when I go for a walk at break time.

But yea, I like following the weather. Might have enjoyed being a meteorologist

I am a big follower of the weather too. WCCO's radar is in my opinion the best in the twin cities, but I really like NOAA for some national flavor.

Here's the forecast for St. Paul -- not quite as locally accurate for you as the Green Hall weather station, but lot's of good information.

Check out the National Digital Forecast Database maps at the bottom of the page.

/me waits for liquidsquid to chime in

I use http://www.wunderground.com for my daily weather addiction.

For example, look at all the pretty maps of Hurricane Dean:
http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tr ... 00704.html

torax wrote:

WCCO's radar is in my opinion the best in the twin cities

For just radar, look at weather.com for their new beta radar map. They stitch many radar stations together to get a nice image of the entire country.

SpotTheCat wrote:

torax wrote:

WCCO's radar is in my opinion the best in the twin cities

For just radar, look at weather.com for their new beta radar map. They stitch many radar stations together to get a nice image of the entire country.

I do like that. They have some good base imagery from Microsoft Visual Earth. Not to sidetrack too much, but I'm curious why MVE uses some really nice 1m DOQs for the area where I live and GoogleEarth does not?

Yeah, http://www.weatherunderground.com rules. The Weather Channel and all it stands for can go rot. They have become more media and making money and sensationalizing things than just giving the weather.

Yes, an addict. Just go to my website and see why.

And my lightning direction finder project is coming along nicely, about to order PC boards.

-LS

'nother vote for wunderground.

My recent favorite is the Weather Channel's live animated radar beta. Click the link, then click the Play button on the bottom right and it gives you the last hour of radar in your area (change the zip code in the URL for your location, it's currently set to 10001 in New York City). It's useful for seeing weather patterns and figuring out if precipitation is coming my way.

I like wunderground for their easy to access historical and seasonal average weather data.

I too share your love for the weather. When there is a heavy rain storm, Im all for it, thunder, lightning... HELL YA! Only problem is that I grew up in Tampa Florida where weather was an everyday thing... and I mean that as in Thunderstorms, Hurricanes, all sorts of stuff. Now I live in Alaska, and weather here is boring. Only every now and then do we get some very cool weather like a REAL blizzard. I hate it when people are like "Oh no, a blizzard is coming.... 3 inches in 4 hours. ohhh whatever will we do" Screw that, I want the 8-12 inches in a matter of 3-4 hours! The really hardcore stuff that has power going out where your in the pitch black lighting candles... thats the stuff I love

As for checking the weather, I tend not to do that. My dad works as an Air Traffic Controller, he is practically a walking weather machine. Not to mention you can easily become "In-Tune" with the natural machine we call weather by having experienced it over the years. You can literally smell snow coming, rain... and even lightning from your sensory perception.

Given my advanced age I must admit that it gives me pause when someone builds a brand around the name Weather Underground.

[/OT]

Welch wrote:

I too share your love for the weather. When there is a heavy rain storm, Im all for it, thunder, lightning... HELL YA! Only problem is that I grew up in Tampa Florida where weather was an everyday thing... and I mean that as in Thunderstorms, Hurricanes, all sorts of stuff. Now I live in Alaska, and weather here is boring. Only every now and then do we get some very cool weather like a REAL blizzard. I hate it when people are like "Oh no, a blizzard is coming.... 3 inches in 4 hours. ohhh whatever will we do" Screw that, I want the 8-12 inches in a matter of 3-4 hours! The really hardcore stuff that has power going out where your in the pitch black lighting candles... thats the stuff I love

As for checking the weather, I tend not to do that. My dad works as an Air Traffic Controller, he is practically a walking weather machine. Not to mention you can easily become "In-Tune" with the natural machine we call weather by having experienced it over the years. You can literally smell snow coming, rain... and even lightning from your sensory perception.

I feel like I can smell the oncoming of fall. And for some reason I think of russia when it comes.

Welch wrote:

Only every now and then do we get some very cool weather like a REAL blizzard. I hate it when people are like "Oh no, a blizzard is coming.... 3 inches in 4 hours. ohhh whatever will we do" Screw that, I want the 8-12 inches in a matter of 3-4 hours! The really hardcore stuff that has power going out where your in the pitch black lighting candles... thats the stuff I love

I know exactly what you mean. In fact, the last time there was a severe thunderstorm here, I put on a raincoat and walked around outside, just to be in the middle of it!

Some cool weather experiences:

I visited Montreal one January, and the weatherman noted it was colder there than in Antarctica.

Last Friday there was a thunderstorm. I was in eastern Queens at the time. It was raining torrentially, and the evening sun was shining brightly. There was lightning, too, that lit everything up almost as though it was nighttime. It was spectacular.

As for checking the weather, I tend not to do that. You can literally smell snow coming, rain... and even lightning from your sensory perception.

That works out in the country, but not so much in the middle of a city. I usually get aches in my arms when a front is coming in.

Captain Ned wrote:

Given my advanced age I must admit that it gives me pause when someone builds a brand around the name Weather Underground.

[/OT]

I think that was the idea, but I am not sure. I think the guys running the site are from those days as well.

liquidsquid wrote:

I think that was the idea, but I am not sure. I think the guys running the site are from those days as well.

Hmm... interesting. The last I heard, the surviving members of the Weather Underground were university professors. Go figure...

Well, these guys are based in a university, but they likely are not one in the same, but influenced by them. I think University of MI. It is only a handful of guys, like TR, that is what makes the site so much fun.

liquidsquid wrote:

Yeah, http://www.weatherunderground.com rules. The Weather Channel and all it stands for can go rot. They have become more media and making money and sensationalizing things than just giving the weather.-LS

Totally agree with you here, both about WU and TWC. I never visit weather.com anymore. Their page takes so damn long to load with the ads and the "Look! It's our TWC Golf Game!!!" (on a whim, I just fired up the site...over 10 seconds to load. Pffft...)

I watch TV's TWC only for the local on the 8's (and it is local...no sat dish for this dude). If I'm lucky enough to hit it on the 6 or 7, I'm fine. Otherwise, it's 4 minutes of commercials and another 3-4 minutes of "OMG--It's Hurricane Dean smashing into the Cayman Islands!!!" with dumb ass WX people on location stating "It's a bit windy out here" as they try to remain standing upright. When did it become trendy to place people right in the path of a hurricane to tell others that "Yep, our radar returns were correct---it's windy and rainy here"? And don't get me started on Jim Cantore...this guy's ego is more bloated than his bald head. He thinks he's a celebrity or something.

Wunderground is awesome. I especially like their radar that allows you to view the storm cells and their intensity and direction. THAT is more useful to me than, say, W.com's Interactive Beta Map with optional satellite imagery overlay. If I wanted that, I'd hit Google Earth.

Yeah, I'm a WX geek. Have been my whole life. Nice to know others share the same passion that I do.

red0510 wrote:

liquidsquid wrote:

Yeah, http://www.weatherunderground.com rules. The Weather Channel and all it stands for can go rot. They have become more media and making money and sensationalizing things than just giving the weather.-LS

Totally agree with you here, both about WU and TWC. I never visit weather.com anymore. Their page takes so damn long to load with the ads and the "Look! It's our TWC Golf Game!!!" (on a whim, I just fired up the site...over 10 seconds to load. Pffft...)

Took 20.575 seconds to load here Fortunately a refresh only took 6.489.

Me personally, I rarely follow the weather. I've got a plug-in for Trillian that tells me the temperatures, and that's about the most I do. Except during hurricane season, come June 1st, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov starts getting lots of loads from me.

Its an odd thing, how weather can effect a persons senses and some of us are, for a lack of better words, turned on by the feel of an oncoming "Disaster" You have to wonder what makes some of us want to run out in the rain, how can some of us smell when rain or winter is very near, and others are simply dumb to it. Makes me wonder if we branched off of some sort of similar primal ancestor that had those sort of instincts. Funny stuff I know, but its just too odd how we are able to do it, and the majority of us were never taught it by anyone, we just picked it up over the years we have experinced being surrounded by weather. I guess, knowing that there is something other than the day to day hustle and bustle, it can all be stopped where man has no control over it and we can go back to having no technology for brief moments in a day, very calming.

I keep Weather Bug in my system tray in order to keep an eye on things at a quick glance.

For radar maps, I usually use the NOAA website. I'm going to check out the Weather Underground site.

When the weather gets crappy around here, I turn on my ham equipment and listen to/participate in the weather net. As a weather spotter, this year has been fairly uneventful here in Central Ohio.

-SF

They charge 5.95 a month, but I think it is worth it. I have used it happily for several years now.

http://premiumweather.com/

Well, being a degreed meteorologist, I like to use a lot of different websites when I am home. SPC is good for severe weather and they have some neat tools like mesoanalysis graphics for real-time severe weather forecasting. http://www.spc.noaa.gov/

For model analysis...I like PSU EWall to get up to date model data for basic weather analysis.: http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/ewall.html

For decent radar and the best satellite imagery...I like UCAR. They have the best enhanced IR and the best moisture channel imagery out there: http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/

For RUC model data and the 1 km visible satellite data...I like College of Dupage:
weather.cod.edu

And for those non weather junkies...the NWS always works:
http://nws.noaa.gov/

For you weather junkies out there who want to stray away from "fake" meteorology websites that give meteorologists a bad name such as TWC...I am always willing to give some lessons You will be surprised how amazing the weather truly is. If you are really hardcore about weather...check out easternuswx.com It is where the super hardcore junkies go. Both degreed meteorologists and non-degreed enthusiasts reside there to talk weather. Check it out.

For those of you who like cool satellite imagery...
here is a neat look at a line of supercells which initiated right near me in Grand Forks, ND yesterday night. One of the supercells developed a tornado which destroyed a town in ND.

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/satellite/g12.2007239.0015_PIR_vis.jpg?9281744

Ozenmacher wrote:

For those of you who like cool satellite imagery...
here is a neat look at a line of supercells which initiated right near me in Grand Forks, ND yesterday night. One of the supercells developed a tornado which destroyed a town in ND.

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/satellite/g12.2007239.0015_PIR_vis.jpg?9281744

You lucky bugger! You live right where the action is! Here in WNY and especially my location is about as lame as a dead horse. Of course that was different this last Friday, but that was exceedingly rare to have such a neat fireworks show of lightning. My wife made me make one of those "difficult choices" that night, and I think I chose wisely and missed 20 minutes of the show.

Cool, a trained meteorologist on the forums. I used to hang around some of those weather guru forums, but I have to say, the obsession of some folks is just a little too frightening.

BTW my PCBs and parts are starting to arrive, and my detection alg is getting some great refining for my lightning radar.

Oh and that satellite image is awesome, that anvil overshoot really shows in that image. Must have been exciting to be under one of those!

-LS

You certainly sound like you know your stuff. Yeah, it was a pretty active day. I work for a private meteorology company in Grand Forks, and we were watching the potential while I was on my midnight shift. We were under strong southerly flow that day with a dewpoint increase of nearly 20 degrees F in less than 24 hours. We nearly reached the convective temp that day and a surface boundary combined with the shallow but saturated boundary layer broke the cap. We had nearly 4000 j/kg of mean layer CAPE and over 40 knots of 0-6km shear to support sustained supercells. And yeah, those overshooting tops on sat were pretty intense. This is what initially fired up...
http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/radar/nids/images/BREF1/KMVX/20070827_002423_black.png?7970140
Note the impressive line of discrete supercells.

Here is the storm that destroyed the town...Look at the easy to see mesoscyclone on base reflectivity just west and south of gfk (Sorry about the bad radar imagery...I have weathertap but I am lazy).
http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/radar/nids/images/BREF1/KMVX/20070827_005816_black.png?293702

And the velocity scan for the same time...that is well over 100 knots of circulation at a decent height above ground.
http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/radar/n ... g?12332315

But yeah, central plains weather is hard to beat. Being in the lee of the Rockies and north of the Gulf, the central plains has the most unique weather in the world.

And I agree with you...some meteorologists have a tendency to go a little overboard. In academia...it is necessary because meteorology itself is a complicated science...but I do notice people have a tendency to over-analyze things at some of the weather geek forum boards.

Man, just saw some pictures of the damage from that tornado on the weatherunderground . A little more than exciting. I wish I could have parked my truck in line with that storm! Too bad I already traded it in.

4000 j/kg of CAPE? Holy crap. The most I have seen around here is 2500 - 3000, and even then the weather guys get all roiled up.

The weird part around here is the more unstable the atmosphere is, the less likely my location will get a storm. Lake Erie steers the strong stuff down to the southeast as it forces cold air to pool in an alternative direction of the rest of the frontal system. Usually a branch of storms will dive down in a direction perpendicular to the lakeshore, and another group will spin off of the end NE in the direction of the long axis of the lake. We happen to lie in-between these two areas. I get to watch the storms from afar.

Supercells are almost unheard of in this neck of the woods, but my wife is unwilling to move. She is no fan of severe weather.

I go outside in blizzards in the harshest conditions for a good cross-country ski. That leaves a person feeling quite alive when you spend several hours out in one of those. The world looks completely different during a bad blizzard, and I got lost during one in an area I was very familiar with. Me getting lost is saying something.

-LS

That is a nice observation about your local weather. From a forecasting point of view it is those small details that you need to keep track of if you want to be a good forecaster.

With regards to the tornado...the I guess it was an EF4...which is quite impressive. The damage to that small town is pretty bad.

And speaking of your weather...it may not be the most interesting during the summer, but your winter weather can be wild! Triple point lows and bombed out noreasters can be a forecasting nightmare...and a meteorologists dream in terms of just observing and watching those systems develop. I personally love synoptic scale meteorology...so you guys have your share of fun too.

For all you radar junkies...

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ridge/kmzgenerator.php

The NWS local office forecast discussion (reno ) is always fun - but I wish they'd get past teletype.

Trying to get a good surface map seems to be rather difficult. It seems shortwave fax is needed although the tiff is out there.

Another problem is finding a good source for intermediate theory. There has been so much going on in the last few years in meteorology. The picture is now full of Rossby (short and long) waves and 3d atmospheric motion rather than surface charts. It would be nice to try to get a handle on that stuff from a generalist point of view.

But then, ever watch the hand waving trying to explain Navier Stokes to a general audience ....