New College of DuPage weather website up

[Jonathan Whitehead]

Eh call me old school but I liked the way it was before. Going to take some time to get used to the new format. The main things I use COD for are the forecast and analysis products. On the analysis page I make heavy use of the VAD wind profilers and the Hi-Res 1km Vis. Just checked the page and notice theres no link to loop the 1km visible as of yet.

 

[GPhillips]

Just checked the page and notice theres no link to loop the 1km visible as of yet.

There's a menu at the top of the single visible satellite image called "Visible Satellite" and a link within it to loop the imagery.

 

[Dave Kaplow]

Can somebody explain the new NAM SRH Difference product to me? This is labeled "SRH Difference (3km - 1km)" which taken at face value would appear to be the difference between the 3km SRH and the 1km SRH, with the later subtracted from the former. While interesting, I can't for the life of me see how that information is valuable enough to have it's own chart. I have never seen this parameter on any other model site. How exactly would you use this information? Or am I completely off base and this chart is measuring something else entirely, like maybe the change in helicity over time?

 

[Jeff Duda]

Can somebody explain the new NAM SRH Difference product to me? This is labeled "SRH Difference (3km - 1km)" which taken at face value would appear to be the difference between the 3km SRH and the 1km SRH, with the later subtracted from the former. While interesting, I can't for the life of me see how that information is valuable enough to have it's own chart. I have never seen this parameter on any other model site. How exactly would you use this information? Or am I completely off base and this chart is measuring something else entirely, like maybe the change in helicity over time?

I suppose this product could give you an indication of the layer in which most of the low-level SRH is. If that difference is large, then you probably have much less 0-1 km SRH, thus less shear, which implies that most of the 0-3 km SRH is in the 1-3 km layer. However, you could get more detailed information on the vertical profile of SRH contributions at a point by looking at a hodograph.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

I suppose this product could give you an indication of the layer in which most of the low-level SRH is. If that difference is large, then you probably have much less 0-1 km SRH, thus less shear, which implies that most of the 0-3 km SRH is in the 1-3 km layer. However, you could get more detailed information on the vertical profile of SRH contributions at a point by looking at a hodograph.

It sounds like it's exactly this -- it's the 1-3 km SRH. Using some math: 0-3 km SRH - 0-1 km SRH = 1-3 km SRH. I'm not sure how you'd use this info as a chaser, though, since I'd certainly want to look at the 0-1 km SRH and 0-3 km SRH plots individually anyway.

EDIT: I suppose if we were looking at elevated convection occurring above a ~1km stable layer, we'd really like to know the 1-3 km SRH considering it could give us valuable insight into supercell potential... In such a case (of elevated convection), the 0-1 km layer may be "worthless" to us since that (which may be helicity-rich) may never end up getting ingested into the updraft. In fact, it's actually quite common to see very high SRH in such stable layers, particularly when there is strong WAA just above the sfc. As such, the SRH above the cold pool or layer of high static stability would be useful assuming this acts as the source region for an updraft (similar in theory to the Effective SRH that can be viewed on Earl's site).

 

[Robert S. Thompson]

I like the change. I didn't use it much before but I think I will now, especially for models. Scrolling through the old menus on the left always annoyed me. Plus I almost always use loops, and they are well done on here. The exception is when I am on a slow connection or old computer, but in that case I'm probably using a different site anyway. RST

 

[Michael Towers]

The COD site has been my resource of choice for model data the last few years mainly due to it’s interface and geographic sector options. Between the current and previous version I liked the old menu setup better, it was much easier to compare different fields for a specific hour than it is now. Otherwise, aside from a few bugs that I’m sure will get worked out I like the new incarnation and it’s still my primary source for analyzing model data.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Big props for the new features that are being added as of today. I love being able to compare current with past model runs and being able to compare different runs at the same time. I also like how they're adding the boxes that hold at able of forecast hours so you don't have to load the entire loop before getting one specific time you want. Keep up the good work!

 

[Michael Towers]

Big props for the new features that are being added as of today. I love being able to compare current with past model runs and being able to compare different runs at the same time. I also like how they're adding the boxes that hold at able of forecast hours so you don't have to load the entire loop before getting one specific time you want. Keep up the good work!

Agreed! If only all my gripes were resolved so quickly and satisfactorily. I take back my comment favoring the previous version and give a big nod to the new version.

 

[Michael Riedl]

Euro has not worked for me the past 2 days.

 

[Tyler Allison]

We had a data purge script run a muck. That nuked the Euro files. We're working on it

 

[Dean Baron]

I know you guys have put a hell of a lot of work in to the new look, but personally I liked the old style better. Maybe I just need to take some time to get used to the new format but I liked the simplicity of the old style better. However I do like being able to toggle between different runs. There was one product on the old format that I dont see on the new one. Can't remember what it was called, but it had surface dewpoint and surface winds and also showed boundaries/fronts. If you know which one I'm talking about, are there any plans on adding it to the current setup?

EDIT: Never mind, found it, it just isn't working on the NAM, but it is for the GFS.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

FWIW, I am now unable to get any graphics to load at all on COD's new design when using the iPhone. Presumably this applies to the iPad as well.

Hopefully this is a temporary issue - lotta chasers use iOS devices!

 

[Tyler Allison]

the loops wont work as they are flash based. But their are image links across the top of each loop page for the static image. Works just fine on my iPhone.

 

[Darren Addy]

As a web developer myself, I know how much time goes into a redesign such as this. But I have to add my voice to those who liked it just fine the way it was before. The new interface seems extremely non-intuitive to me. I especially hate extra clicks to reveal menu items, especially when there is plenty of screen real estate there to just show the links in the first place. Otherwise, why not just show the link options. It's like the designers just wanted to use their CSS or AJAX chops or something.

Granted, I need to spend more time with it than I have before I make any final judgments, but my initial impression is that these changes were not made with the end user's ease of use foremost in mind.

IMHO, the biggest mistake was the way all (or at least all of the ones I tried) of the old links just 404 now, instead of redirecting to the new place. That is really gonna hurt COD's SEO and makes headaches all the way down the line for anybody who linked to COD. I would have argued for at least putting the new design side by side with the old interface so that people would have the option of which to choose. That also would have given Google time to learn to rank the new pages.