SPC convective outlook question

[Cammie Czuchnicki]

Dear all,

I am a little confused in regards to the current convective outlooks issued by the SPC. The main convective outlooks page gives a thumbnail for today, day 2, day 3 and the 4-8 day outlook. However, when I click through to view a thumbnail as a larger image, the risk areas seem to change. Today's current day 2 outlook is a prime example of this (the slight risk over Montana is not apparent on the larger image).

www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/

Is this as expected? I am fairly new to this so apologies if I'm interpreting it incorrectly.

Many thanks,
Cammie

 

[Jason Haller]

Dear all,

I am a little confused in regards to the current convective outlooks issued by the SPC. The main convective outlooks page gives a thumbnail for today, day 2, day 3 and the 4-8 day outlook. However, when I click through to view a thumbnail as a larger image, the risk areas seem to change. Today's current day 2 outlook is a prime example of this (the slight risk over Montana is not apparent on the larger image).

www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/

Is this as expected? I am fairly new to this so apologies if I'm interpreting it incorrectly.

Many thanks,
Cammie

Sounds like an image caching issues. Try hitting refresh and see if it still showing the incorrect thumbnails. It is working as it should on my PC as of 30 seconds ago.

 

[Dave Marshall]

Another idea: If you happen to catch the images just after update, the various images and discussions often seem to post out of sync. A new discussion may appear before the new graphic or vice versa, or the thumbnail may be the old outlook while the new outlook appears when you click on it. There is usually about a 15-20 minute window on either side of the "next outlook due by" time where this can happen.

If it is an image caching problem, trying holding shift while clicking the refresh button, or tell your browser to empty your cache. Just hitting refresh won't always clear a cached image.

 

[Andrew Herron]

It's because their updating lags the actual release of the products that I use COD's website to get the latest and greatest:

http://kamala.cod.edu/spc/

 

[Kirk Chestnut]

This happened on Monday as well. This is a first.

 

[Cammie Czuchnicki]

Thanks all for the replies. It's happened a few times recently but I'm sure it can be attributed to one of the above reasons. I'm glad about that, as I was concerned that I didn’t understand the website correctly.

I've just looked at the site again and it appears to be fine, without me trying one of the suggestions above. But it's good to have these in mind for if it happens again.

Many thanks,
Cammie

 

[M Patterson]

It's because their updating lags the actual release of the products that I use COD's website to get the latest and greatest:

http://kamala.cod.edu/spc/

I've been watching this for a few days now. COD really does update sooner. That's a nice tip.

 

[Scott Sims]

Like others have said, SPC outlooks are funny right about update time. In fact while out chasing last month I noticed on more than one day that when the 20Z update was about to be posted, the 1630Z graphics(that had been up for several hours and page reloads) reverted back to the 13Z graphics for a few minutes and then were replaced by the 20Z, which is really strange.