tag:blog.weathertap.com,2008://1 2008-06-12T16:25:51Z Discussion of WeatherTAP news, issues, and events Movable Type 3.33 tag:blog.weathertap.com,2008://1.27 2008-06-11T15:42:44Z 2008-06-12T16:25:51Z

A couple new features and a few changes have been made with Revision 22 of RadarLab HD. Click here to read more....

Stacey Simmons http://www.weathertap.com A couple new features and a few changes have been made with Revision 22 of RadarLab HD. Click here to read more. Local Storm Reports - NWS Local Storm Reports (LSR) have been added to this revision of RadarLab HD. You can turn these on by clicking on the "Local Storm Reports" check box listed under the "Data" tab. Place the mouse cursor over a LSR icon and you will see all the information about the LSR in a tool-tip format. 2. SpotterNetwork - RadarLab HD now supports the SpotterNetwork data. You can turn these on by clicking on the "SpotterNetwork" check box listed under the "Data" tab. As with the LSR data, you can place the mouse cursor over a SpotterNetwork icon and you will see all the information about the SpotterNetwork report in a tool-tip format. To read more about the SpotterNetwork click here. 3. Real-Time Lightning - Real-time lightning users can now change their area of coverage as often as they like. Click on the "Settings" button and then the "Lightning Settings" tab. Toward the bottom of this tab there is a place where you can change the center latitude and longitude point of your coverage area. This allows you to move your real-time lightning area to places where lightning is currently occurring. A "Lightning Box" check box has also been added to the RadarLab HD control panel. When selected, it will draw a red box around your real-time lightning coverage area. This will allow you to know exactly where your real-time coverage area is. 3. Resizing RadarLab HD window - A more intelligent algorithm is now being used to determine the zoom levels when you resize the RadarLab HD Window. When resizing the window, the first zoom level will not be "zoomed in" as far as in previous revisions. ]]> tag:blog.weathertap.com,2008://1.26 2008-04-17T13:06:50Z 2008-04-18T02:37:07Z

Three key changes have been made in Revision 20 of RadarLab HD. The description of these changes can be found in here....

Stacey Simmons http://www.weathertap.com Three key changes have been made in Revision 20 of RadarLab HD. The description of these changes can be found in here. Storm Path Estimate - A storm path estimate has been added as part of the tool-tip of the storm tracks. So turn on the storm tracks and then place the mouse over the centroid of the storm track and you will see the storm path estimate. This estimate shows what time certain cities might be affected by the storm cell if it maintains its current speed and direction. Only the storm tracks that have cities in their current path will have the storm path estimates. New storm cells will not have a storm path estimate as the direction the cell is moving cannot be calculated for that radar frame. 2. Custom Color Scale - The user now has the chance to build their own custom color scale for reflectivity radar data. Just click on the Settings button and then the Color Scale tab to get started. 3. Warnings Change - The Warnings check box has been removed and replaced with a Severe Warnings check box and an Other Warnings check box. When the Severe Warnings check box is selected, it will display Tornado, Severe Thunderstorm, Flash Flood and Marine warnings. All other warnings will be displayed when the Other Warnings check box is selected. This was done to reduce the amount of clutter that can occur when all the warnings are plotted.]]> tag:blog.weathertap.com,2008://1.25 2008-03-28T21:24:19Z 2008-03-28T21:27:53Z

We have created some KML weather related files that you can download and view in Google Earth or any other application that supports KML. Currently we have Level II Radar data and Warning files to download. You can read more...

Stacey Simmons http://www.weathertap.com here.]]> tag:blog.weathertap.com,2008://1.24 2008-03-05T16:49:00Z 2008-03-05T17:02:28Z

Flight plan filing is now available on the weatherTAP Aviation page. When you fill out your flight information and then press the Submit Request button, your flight plan will be filed through DTC DUAT. You can get to the flight...

Stacey Simmons http://www.weathertap.com Aviation page. When you fill out your flight information and then press the Submit Request button, your flight plan will be filed through DTC DUAT. You can get to the flight plan filing page by clicking on the "File Flight Plan" menu option at the top of the Aviation page or go directly to the page by clicking here.]]> tag:blog.weathertap.com,2008://1.23 2008-02-13T20:04:27Z 2008-02-13T20:09:11Z

The only change with Revision 18 affects the Alarm Settings. A bug was found in the Alarming code that would cause the alarm not to sound when it should have. This occurred when alarming on a Watch or Warning if...

Stacey Simmons http://www.weathertap.com The only change with Revision 18 affects the Alarm Settings. A bug was found in the Alarming code that would cause the alarm not to sound when it should have. This occurred when alarming on a Watch or Warning if the user was zoomed in. This has now been corrected. tag:blog.weathertap.com,2008://1.22 2008-02-05T19:45:52Z 2008-02-05T20:00:57Z

There is one new addition and some enhancements with RadarLab HD Version 1.0 Revision 17. All the changes in this release can be found in here....

Stacey Simmons http://www.weathertap.com There is one new addition and some enhancements with RadarLab HD Version 1.0 Revision 17. All the changes in this release can be found in here. The major addition to Revision 17 is a Winter Mask Check Box. This is located just above the "Filter Radar" button. When this check box is selected, a winter precipitation mask will be applied to the radar image. This will show areas of possible mixed and/or snow precipitation and is very similar to the winter mosaic radar images we provide. The Winter Mask can only be displayed on the Reflectivity radar images. Other enhancements: 1. When a new radar site is loaded, RadarLab HD will now check to see if the radar data is older than 45 minutes. If it is, then the user is prompted with this information. This should help users become aware of radar sites that might be down for maintenance. 2. A print button has now been added to the Watches, Warnings and Advisories window. This will allow users to print any of the watches or warning for their record keeping. 3. The winter mosaic radar image is now displayed when the "Change Sites" button is pressed. This replaces the normal mosaic image. 4. A code change was made so that all Longitude points that are added either in the Custom Locations or Alarm Settings pages are saved with a negative value. tag:blog.weathertap.com,2007://1.21 2007-12-10T16:33:12Z 2008-01-23T22:04:53Z

WeatherTAP now has a Mobile Weather section that we have just released called WeatherTAP Mobile. WeatherTAP subscribers that have a mobile device with a web browser (Cell Phone, PDA, etc.) can now use WeatherTAP Mobile to get weather information while...

Stacey Simmons http://www.weathertap.com WeatherTAP Mobile. WeatherTAP subscribers that have a mobile device with a web browser (Cell Phone, PDA, etc.) can now use WeatherTAP Mobile to get weather information while on the go.]]> Screen Shots Mobile Homepage National Radar Winter Mosaic Winter Mosaic (zoomed in some) Satellite To use the beta testing version of WeatherTAP Mobile, point your device's browser to http://www.weathertap.com/mobile. Current WeatherTAP subscribers can click here to preview how WeatherTAP Mobile should look on your mobile device. Below is a description of all the features available with WeatherTAP Mobile. You can now access all the weather images from weathertap.com on your mobile device. Each image will be resized to your preferred image size. This is set in the Mobile Settings page and is describe in more detail below. You can also zoom in or out and pan left or right on the images that are displayed on your device. A new 'Full Size' link has now been added to the image zoom section. This allows the image to be displayed in it's original size. This option can be used on Windows Mobile devices that support the 'Desktop' view option as well as the iPhone or any other device that can display large images. Images such as radar and satellite can also be animated. You can add almost any of the mobile weather pages you access to your 'My Favorites' list. This list can contain up to 15 bookmarks to WeatherTAP Mobile pages. To add a page to your favorites list, just click on the 'Add To Favorites' link at the bottom of that page. Below is a description of the Mobile Settings Page. Mobile Settings Page Use this page to set default settings for your WeatherTAP Mobile experience. Timezone Use this selection box to set the time zone you want valid dates to be display in. The default is Eastern but you can change this to Central, Mountain or Pacific if you want. Number of Animation Frames Use this selection box to set the number of frames you want animations to contain. Some browsers do not have much memory and you can decrease the number of animation frames to try an get animations to load. The default is 5 frames but it can be any number from 1 to 10. Font Size Use this selection box to choose what size font you want text to be displayed in. Some devices such as iPhones work well with the "Large" or "X Large" setting. Image Pixel Size This section is used to set what size you want the images to be displayed with. All images displayed on your mobile device will use this setting. Using this method, all images that are displayed on weathertap.com can now be viewed, zoomed and panned on your mobile device. If you are not sure what size image your device supports, you can click on a link in this section of the Mobile Settings Page that shows you a list of mobile devices. You can choose your mobile device from the list. The default image size is set to 200 x 200 pixels. Automatic Login Use this option to turn Automatic Login on or off. This option is useful if you are always prompted with a login box every time you visit the site. When automatic login is turned on, it uses a cookie to store your weatherTAP username and password. Then every time you revisit the site, you should not be prompted for a username and password. For this to work, your browser must support cookies and have them turned on. My Favorites The 'My Favorites' link on the mobile weather homepage allows you to access all the pages you have saved as favorites. This allows quick access to the pages you view the most. There is an option to delete some or all of you favorites if you feel the need to do so. Please let us know if you have any questions or comments.]]> tag:blog.weathertap.com,2007://1.20 2007-12-10T13:53:37Z 2007-12-10T14:27:58Z

As I'm sure most of you are aware, the GOES East satellite images have been experiencing some problems over the last week....

Stacey Simmons http://www.weathertap.com As I'm sure most of you are aware, the GOES East satellite images have been experiencing some problems over the last week. here. This switch from the GOES-12 to the GOES-10 seems to have affected the Water Vapor images more than any other of the GOES East imagery. On Friday December 7th, the following was stated by NOAA: Engineers have confirmed the cause of the attitude disturbances on GOES-12 that started after the North/South maneuver. We believe there is a leak in the oxidizer line of thruster 2B. We were successful yesterday in isolating the thruster. This evening, we are planning to go into normal attitude control mode. Engineers will be monitoring the spacecraft through out the weekend. On Monday we will determine whether to begin normal imaging and sounding operations. GOES-10 continues to support the East satellite imaging and sounding operations. Since yesterday GOES-10 GVAR and all auxiliary services, including EMWIN, were broadcast simultaneously through GOES-10 and GOES-12. Today I was able to reach Brian Hughes at NOAA and inquire about the problems with the Water Vapor images. This was his response: We are having difficulties with the GVAR signal from GOES-10. All throughout the weekend, we've seen numerous dropouts and missed images, because the receiving antenna we are using is having problems staying on the GOES-10 signal. This is causing interruptions in the NOAAPort processing. We hope to have GOES-12 back by mid week. So it looks like the Water Vapor images will continue to be affected until NOAA gets GOES-12 back up and running, hopefully sometime this week. ]]> tag:blog.weathertap.com,2007://1.19 2007-11-01T21:07:25Z 2007-11-01T21:17:54Z

There are some new additions and bug fixes with RadarLab HD in Version 1.0 Revision 16. All the changes in this release can be found in here....

Stacey Simmons http://www.weathertap.com There are some new additions and bug fixes with RadarLab HD in Version 1.0 Revision 16. All the changes in this release can be found in here. 1. The 'Backgrounds' layer tab has been changed to 'Maps'. 2. The 'Radar' layers tab now contains a lot more products than just Base Reflectivity. RadarLab HD now contains most of the Level-III radar products that are available in the original RadarLab. The RadarLab HD Base Reflectivity layer is the Level-II data and all other Radar layers are Level-III data products. 3. A Lightning Settings tab has been added to the Settings page. This allows the user to display lightning strikes that are within set time ranges. You can use this to show only the newest lightning strikes or the oldest or any combination you want. 4. A print button has been added to the Help page so you can print the help section. I'm working on updating the help files to make them current. These should be finished by the end of the week. 5. A bug fix for the Watches, Warnings and Advisories layers is also included with this release. This corrects the tool-tipping of the defined polygons when zooming has occurred. tag:blog.weathertap.com,2007://1.18 2007-10-25T14:12:26Z 2007-10-29T21:14:33Z

There are a few new things that have been added to RadarLab HD in Version 1.0 Revision 15. All the changes in this release can be found in here....

Stacey Simmons http://www.weathertap.com There are a few new things that have been added to RadarLab HD in Version 1.0 Revision 15. All the changes in this release can be found in here. delete your Java cache to remove the old JNLP file that is on your computer. This should cause the width to come up correctly. 6. The 'Auto Refresh' option can now be set as a default parameter by clicking on the 'Settings' button. This will allow RadarLab HD to have 'Auto Refresh' checked every time you launch it. ]]> tag:blog.weathertap.com,2007://1.17 2007-06-22T17:53:28Z 2008-06-22T04:24:34Z

You can now connect a GPS device to your computer and plot your location in RadarLab HD. You can display your current location using one of four different symbols and display the GPS track of where you have been. You...

Stacey Simmons http://www.weathertap.com You can now connect a GPS device to your computer and plot your location in RadarLab HD. You can display your current location using one of four different symbols and display the GPS track of where you have been. You can also change the color of GPS overlay to any color you wish. RadarLab HD GPS page. You can also get to the RadarLab HD GPS page from the regular RadarLab page. When RadarLab HD is launched from this page, you will be prompted with a security warning that you must accept. The warning is being prompted because Java needs to have access to the serial port on your computer in order to read the GPS data from it. Once RadarLab HD is running you can click on the Help button to read more information about the GPS tracking. If you want to have the GPS enabled version of RadarLab HD to be launch from your desktop, you need to delete your Java cache and re-launch RadarLab HD from the GPS page. Directions on how to delete your Java cache are here. Mac OS X Users To allow the GPS to work on a Mac you must check the following: 1. You must have the folder "uucp" in the directory "/var/spool". To check this, bring up the Terminal and type in the following command: ls /var/spool Now see if the "uucp" folder is listed. If not, you must create it by running the following command: sudo mkdir /var/spool/uucp You now need to set the proper permissions on this directory. Do this by running the following command: sudo chmod 777 /var/spool/uucp 2. You should be a member of the "uucp" group. To do this run the following commands (it would be best to copy and paste these commands): sudo niutil -destroyval / /groups/uucp users `whoami` (The ` in this line is the symbol listed to the left of the number "1" key) sudo niutil -appendprop / /groups/uucp users `whoami` 3. The Last step is that you should have the folder "lock" in the directory "/var". To check this, in the Terminal type in the following command: ls /var Now see if the "lock" folder is listed. If it is not listed, then you must create it by running the following command: sudo mkdir /var/lock You now need to set the proper permissions on this folder by running the command: sudo chmod 777 /var/lock You should now be able to use the GPS functionality of RadarLab HD on your Mac OS X system.]]> tag:blog.weathertap.com,2007://1.16 2007-05-24T19:54:59Z 2008-05-27T16:46:59Z

RadarLab HD is launched through a program called Java Web Start. Java Web Start is supposed to check when a new version of RadarLab HD is present and then download it to your computer. We have found that this does...

Stacey Simmons http://www.weathertap.com RadarLab HD is launched through a program called Java Web Start. Java Web Start is supposed to check when a new version of RadarLab HD is present and then download it to your computer. We have found that this does not always work. Because of this, we have added some code in RadarLab HD to check for a new version every time it is launched. If a new version is found, it is downloaded and the user is informed of this. This code was added to the "V1.0 Revision 11" version of RadarLab HD. Please make sure you have this version or a higher version of RadarLab HD installed on your computer so you will automatically receive software updates. To determine which version of RadarLab HD you have installed just click on the RadarLab HD logo in the upper right hand corner of the program. If you do not have version "V1.0 Revision 11" or higher installed, you will need to delete your Java cache and then relaunch RadarLab HD from the website. To delete your Java cache, do the following: In Windows: 1. Bring up the Control Panel (Start->Control Panel or Start->Settings->Control Panel). 2. Clicking on the "Java" icon. (If you do not see the "Java" icon, click on the "Switch to Classic View" link on the left side of the Control Panel.) This will bring up the Java Control Panel. 3. Click on the "Settings.." button. This brings up the "Temporary Files Settings" window. 4. Click on the "Delete Files..." button. This brings up the "Delete Temporary Files" window. 5. Click the "OK" button at the bottom of this window. This will remove RadarLab HD from you computer. 6. Relaunch RadarLab HD from the weathertap.com website and you will have the latest version of RadarLab HD. In Macintosh OS X: 1. In the Finder, go to the "GO" menu and select "Utilities". 2. Open the "Java" folder. 3. Open the "J2SE" folder. This will probably be labeled "J2SE 5.0". 4. Open the "Java Perferences" application. 5. Click on the "Delete Files" button. 6. Confirm that "Downloaded Applets", Downloaded Applications" and "Other Files" are all checked. 7. Click "OK". This will remove RadarLab HD from you computer. 8. Relaunch RadarLab HD from the weathertap.com website and you will have the latest version of RadarLab HD. tag:blog.weathertap.com,2007://1.15 2007-03-27T18:48:00Z 2007-03-27T18:59:24Z

RadarLab HD now portrays storm tracks in different colors depending on whether there is TVS or MESO indicator. Cells containing possibility of hail (POH > 0) are also coded. In addition, you can now hover the mouse over a centroid...

0) are also coded. In addition, you can now hover the mouse over a centroid to view detailed information about the cell. This feature appears in Revision 3 of the RadarLab HD client. To see what revision you have, click the RadarLab HD icon in the upper righthand corner of the HD window. If you don't have revision 3 or greater, you may need to clear your Java cache and reload from the website. To clear your cache, go to Windows control panel and open the Java CP. The General tab contains a button labeled "Delete files". Press that button and your cache will be cleared. Any desktop shortcuts to RadarLab HD will be removed in the process. ]]> tag:blog.weathertap.com,2007://1.13 2007-03-08T20:14:45Z 2007-03-22T23:08:40Z

Here are the quick facts: RadarLab HD requires the latest version of Java. Download it here. RadarLab HD requires a minimum screen resolution of 1024x768. If you have anything smaller, part of the control panel will be cut off....

Here are the quick facts: RadarLab HD requires the latest version of Java. Download it here. RadarLab HD requires a minimum screen resolution of 1024x768. If you have anything smaller, part of the control panel will be cut off. There is no way around this. The "classic" RadarLab tool has not been discontinued. It is still available on the site. RadarLab HD is available to WeatherTAP subscribers at no extra cost. We have rolled this feature into the basic service and we have no plans to charge anything additional for it. We may, in the future, offer an enhanced lightning add-on for HD that will have an extra cost however. RadarLab HD has been shown to run on Windows, Linux, and at least one Mac platform. RadarLab HD currently only does base reflectivity. In the future we may expand it to offer other types of radar information. HD uses level-ii data from the 134 nexrad sites which are generating it. Level-II includes only reflectivity, velocity, and spectrum width. Data is available via RadarLab HD faster than classic RadarLab. This is because we ingest live data from the radar as it is scanning through the VCP. We do not have to wait for the RPG section to process the data. Because of HD's unique, ground-breaking architecture, you can actually create a desktop icon and load RadarLab HD up as a stand-alone utility without even launching your browser. You will be occasionally prompted for this. We hope you enjoy this new addition and find it useful.]]> tag:blog.weathertap.com,2007://1.12 2007-03-08T18:59:07Z 2007-03-08T20:23:21Z

Since some users do not need 121/135 legal preflight weather briefings, we are now allowing users to choose which Aviation Weather area they prefer to use. Users may choose the use the new QICP-certified site, or the older, non-certified...

Since some users do not need 121/135 legal preflight weather briefings, we are now allowing users to choose which Aviation Weather area they prefer to use. Users may choose the use the new QICP-certified site, or the older, non-certified page. Visit the Aviation Weather page to change which your preferred default. ]]>