Single Site NWS Doppler Radars On-Line
On December 31st, 2000, the contract between the National Weather Service
and the major weather data vendors offically ended. This contract previously
prevented the NWS from displaying realtime individual radar site imagery on
the Internet.
In the past to see a NWS Doppler radar image the user had two choices; pay
a monthly fee for the realtime image, or go to a free site and expect a
image from 10-60 minutes old along with numerous advertizing logos (which
always loaded first).
Today the NWS Doppler radar Internet server is up and running for almost all
NWS radar sites at:
http://weather.noaa.gov/radar/national.html
with only about a 2-3 minute delay between when the picture is taken to delivery.
This initial offering and time delay of radar imagery should be more than
sufficient for Emergency Managers, storm spotters, and weather sensitive
personnel to make more and better informed decisions. However the NWS Doppler
radars are highly sensitive and sophisticated - and can display non weather
targets - which the new users must learn about. This is why its essential to
read the radar tutorial also on the website. If you still have trouble, send
me a E-mail for a quick answer (I have been a radar user for about 15
years).
For the more serious weather info user, the NWS also has available
satellite, FTP, and wide bandwdith T-1 services along with some 40 other planned radar
products for a fee.
For the severe weather response community this has been a long, long, long-
awaited, and highly anticipated event.....
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Regards,
Skip Voros WD9HAS,
Exec. Dir. MASA Inc.
www.execpc.com/~svoros
masa@execpc.com
MASA ["MAY-sah"] is the
Milwaukee Area SKYWARN Association,
Inc. (Est 1992), a Wisconsin Not-for-Profit Corporation and NWS-MKX Sullivan Committee
Member.
Skywarn is an organization for the identification, evaluation,
& reporting of dangerous weather.
END OF FEED
Above story provided by Mack Brophy N9NTB,
Wisconsin Office of Emergency Management
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1 Jan 2001