New Chase/Forecasting Mesoanalysis Tool

[Kelton Halbert]

Hey all! Not entirely sure I'm in the right subforum, so if a moderator sees fit I will delete and move to Equipment or they can move it themselves.

I wanted to bring to your attention something we've been working on since summer of last year - https://satsquatch.com. We're 4 folks who graduated from OU (Austin King, Andrew Lyons, Tyler Bell, and myself) and all chased together and love messing with data and decided to write a satellite viewer.

We weren't very happy with the current state of most GOES16 satellite viewers that were just static images with some sector zooms, so we set out to make our own. It's a completely interactive, web-based and mobile-friendly GOES16 viewer. You can pinch, zoom, and loop your way around the CONUS, draw and annotate the map, display your current location, and more.

Additionally, we wanted it to be about more than pure satellite data, so we have incorporated RTMA surface field overlays that update every 15 minutes and convective mesoanalysis overlays that update every hour (but will move to 15 minute updates in the near future). There's also a GLM Lightning overlay and derived satellite composites (true color, fog detection, snow/ice detection). The list of mesoanalysis overlays and satellite base products is continuing to expand, with fire weather RGBs in the works, and the mother of all mesoanalysis products, we're gonna contour the PDS TOR calculations you see on soundings because why freaking not.

Anyway, if this is something that interests you, hit up the link and sign up! It's 100% free to use the basic satellite products, and the mesoanalysis/derived products can be acquired through a $5/mo subscription that is basically a means of allowing us to run this without intruding your screen with advertisements. I've attached some screenshots below!

Kelton.

 

[Mark Blue]

I haven’t been thrilled with the current crop of GOES 16 image browsers either, so this appears to be a God-send as far as I’m concerned. Thanks for all the work you put into this, it really shows. I’ll be making my way over to check it out and subscribe to help defray some of your development costs.

BTW, this sub-forum is fine for this post.

 

[Ethan Lang]

This looks awesome. I will definitely head over and check it out

 

[Oliver G.]

Thanks I test it, have allready pro looks awesome


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[Kelton Halbert]

Thanks guys! And if you have any feature requests, feedback, or bug reports, please pass them along!

 

[Mark Blue]

Thanks guys! And if you have any feature requests, feedback, or bug reports, please pass them along!

I’ve tried pressing the lady bug icon and it doesn’t do anything on iOS 11.3. I’m using an iPad Pro and have tried it on both Safari and Chrome. I thought it would open a contact form, a pre-filled email, or something similar but it doesn’t do anything. Not that I have a bug to report, but I was going to ask if your team will eventually develop standalone apps for iOS and/or Android platforms. So far so good though as it seems very intuitive and easy to use.

 

[StephenHenry]

My first reaction was "What do you mean the GOES16 stuff is lacking?? COD's /exper page is great!" But seeing what you guys are putting together opens up a world of improvements I didn't even know I wanted. I'm super impressed and will definitely try it out with the 5 buck subscription.


Do you think COD is doing some post processing on their localized sectors? I do kinda prefer the brightened COD image at full zoom, and it also seems to have a little more resolution (although I could be tricked by some post-processing sharpening). But ya'll are really on to something here!

 

[James Gustina]

The clean interface and better quality make this a pretty sweet tool on top of the expanded mesoanalysis options. Most importantly, it plays nice on my phone compared to COD.

Sent from my VS996 using Tapatalk

 

[Kelton Halbert]

I’ve tried pressing the lady bug icon and it doesn’t do anything on iOS 11.3. I’m using an iPad Pro and have tried it on both Safari and Chrome. I thought it would open a contact form, a pre-filled email, or something similar but it doesn’t do anything. Not that I have a bug to report, but I was going to ask if your team will eventually develop standalone apps for iOS and/or Android platforms. So far so good though as it seems very intuitive and easy to use.

This was brought to our attention yesterday as well, so you're not the only one. Apparently the developers of the bug reporting API changed some things on us just before release, so it stopped working. We're working on fixing it up, but in the mean time, please feel free to email us with any comments in the place of the ladybug icon! We can be reached at support(at)wxbyte.com and are pretty quick to respond.

As far as your question about standalone applications, those have been in the pipeline since day 1 when we started this endeavor last summer! We're working on an app for both platforms, but that takes considerably more time to do that, hence why we decided to release now instead of waiting for the app. While I can't give an ETA on the app, I can tell you it's being actively developed on a daily basis while also making sure stuff with the website is running smoothly. We want the app to be a good experience for people and not a frustrating one, so we're going to take our time and do it right.

Do you think COD is doing some post processing on their localized sectors? I do kinda prefer the brightened COD image at full zoom, and it also seems to have a little more resolution (although I could be tricked by some post-processing sharpening). But ya'll are really on to something here!
View attachment 16796

The difference in brightness just has to do with scaling the image properly - it can be a tricky proposition to balance it so that you have high contrast in brighter areas where its still day and still see darker features near dusk. We can definitely continue to look into and refine the image scaling so that it maintains better visibility! As far as the resolution goes, we are using the full resolution data but it may not look as "sharp" due to the tile generator that allows for you to do dynamic zooming and load only the tiles you want to see. We're actively working towards enhancing the resolution of those tiles to look more crisp, and is on our roadmap to accomplish before the end of the summer.

Hopefully this clears up some of your questions! Here in the next two weeks, we will be announcing a development roadmap so that people have subscribed can know what's coming down the pipes and that we're not just sitting on our butts, hopefully making the subscription worth your while!

 

[Kelton Halbert]

I’ve tried pressing the lady bug icon and it doesn’t do anything on iOS 11.3. I’m using an iPad Pro and have tried it on both Safari and Chrome. I thought it would open a contact form, a pre-filled email, or something similar but it doesn’t do anything. Not that I have a bug to report, but I was going to ask if your team will eventually develop standalone apps for iOS and/or Android platforms. So far so good though as it seems very intuitive and easy to use.

Also, quick update, the bug report feature has been fixed and is operational again.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Nice work. Maybe you guys could do something similar with radar - the one shortcoming of RadarScope is the inability to see the whole country/region and zoom in and out like on your satellite product.


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[Todd Lemery]

Great job guys! Just got the pro and I love it!

 

[Kelton Halbert]

Just wanted to update: we’ve added quite a few new mesoanalysis parameters for you to check out while chasing. Last night we added 0-3km CAPE, parcel lapse rates, and SPC’s Violent Tornado Parameter (VTP). Since release we have also added 0-1km, 0-3km, and 3-6km lapse rates.

 

[Mark Blue]

Thanks for adding features so rapidly and giving us mega-bang for the buck. Seems like a screaming deal to me!

I had one feature request that would fit under “Geographical” under the “Layers” icon. I guess you could call it a terrain or relief map maybe? I’m not sure but it comes from my previous go to satellite viewer found here: http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/us_comp/large. I think it just adds a little distinction to be able to see more terrain features on the map. Just an idea I’ve been mulling over and certainly not a big deal. Thanks.

 

[David Williams]

Great product! I purchased the subscription and used it often during the 2 chases I had this week. I know I'll get a ton of use out of it. Highly recommended!

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