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- Science and Storm Chasing
- Advanced weather & chasing
Gerrit Gulden
EF4
Weathertap was the first Subscription Weather service I used. I stuck with it for about a year but later decided i wanted to try something new. What I didnt notice was anyone else mentioning Accuweathers RadarPlus. Ive been using this service for awhile now. The basic setup is in fact basic, but Radar viewing has several themed settings (colors,etc) and the only thing i would complain about is the Stormcell data, As the radar advances each frame the stormcell attributes change, so basically you havta pause the radar to see which is which. In end I too am looking for software or a subscription service like Interwarn's stormlab. Grlevel3 seems to be the big talk around here. I will definetely check it out. I will also check out allison house.
For the accuweather radarplus, check out
http://wwwa.accuweather.com/adcbin/public/radarplus_benefits.asp
The lightning data retrived can be Live as long as you can afford it. Otherwise Lightning data is relayed.
-gerrit
Gene Moore
EF3
I almost jumped to RadarPlus a while back as an Internet backup for Threatnet, mainly because of the roads and streets it includes. In the end I stayed with WeatherTap (Studio) one last season. Because it does have some roads, helpful to pin down storm location within a county. I feel it's helpful to augment Threatnet with another source that includes tilt levels of storm relative motion, certainly a place where Barron's fails with their shear blobs. No doubt GRLevelX is the best, but as mentioned before, for free the new radar page upgrades to the COD site are the best available.
I'll raise another issue that might impact someone buying new radar software. In the near future the NWS is going to high resolution data. How this will impact the current Internet sources and GRLevelX remains to be seen. As I understand it there will be a "viewer" available like there is now for Level II data from NWS. Will this make GRLevelX obsolete, I can't answer that right now. Also, GRAnalyst is the best 3D offering available. I wish to use it next season if I can get everything set up. Too bad Threatnet doesn't have GRLevelX's resolution, but that may (or may not) matter soon with the upgrades coming out. Anyone that can add more information to this topic....it would be appreciated.
Gene Moorerdale
EF5
The high-res change (next year at the earliest) will not affect GRLevel3 or any other program that uses NIDS data. It will just change the Level II format, and the NWS (NCDC) Java viewer will be modified but nothing newer is coming from the government for free...
Gene Moore
EF3
Right and thanks, but excuse me for digging for a better answer. Is it possible changing the level II format to higher resolution will make this data (with updated viewer) a better product for us? That is, better than the current data with GRLevel3?
generdale
EF5
It won't change GRLevel3 or any other NIDS display system, nor really improve it much since the data will still be "dumbed down" as it is now. It will DRAMATICALLY change GRAE with much more detail in the returns.
Sample pics on page 7 of http://www.roc.noaa.gov/NWS_Level_2/Update0107_Lvl2_Final2.pdf
Stuart Robinson
EF5
I use GRL3 solely now for my Radar – but unless anything has changed? WeatherTap still has the most up to date and Hi res Satellite images. I have lost count of the days I have been sat at a truck stop, constantly refreshing the WeatherTap Satellite – waiting for initialisation to occur - for this reason I will subscribe again for May and June 2007.
Tyler Allison
EF5
You can get hi-res satellite underlays for GR3 through AllisonHouse
Gene Moore
EF3
Has anyone approached WxWorx (Barron's) and asked them if they ever intend to upgrade their software? There is so much they could do, like lease part of the GRLevelX program or provide radar (not satellite) elevation slices. Just adding what's available for storm relative motion/ shear in WeatherTap or COD site would be a drastic improvement.....at least for those of us that know what we're looking at. I realize it's dumbed down for the non-weather types (fisherman etc), but those people aren't going to subscribe to the high end Responder package chasers use anyway.
Regardless, an uninterrupted satellite feed has dramatic advantages over cellular Internet. I'll bet more questions get asked about cell data issues than any other storm chase subject. And, chasers likely spend more time fighting cellular data connections than any other task in the field.
gene
Greg Stumpf
EF5
One of the reasons that the data is so dumbed down on WxWorx is because they are extremely limited in bandwidth using satellite comms. I've also heard rumors that WxWorx does not make enough profit for them to justify many improvements, but I could be wrong (hopefully).joelawton
I used to use WxTap back in the day. Also tried RadarLab but wasn't too impressed with it. For the last year I've been using SwiftWx and have been very impressed with it, especailly after the last update which gives wind patterns, front and dryline locations, and better street mapping. Plus the ability to customize and coordinate with your GPS, it makes an awesome tool while on the chase!
However to be fair I'll be trying out GR-X and will post again.
Tom Stefanac
EF2
Prepare to be blown away! Just remember, you can add just about anything into GR-X. Swift is nice, but you will forever be addicted to level3 with GR-X, and don't let the level 2 big bite you LOL.
Tom
Gene Moore
EF3
Yeah, I fear you're correct. If I may go off the track here a bit and talk about issues with parent XM Satellite Radio. They aren't making money, 1.36 billion in debt, cash flow -$497 million, book value per share -.94 cents .....and so on. Sirius is not much better. There is talk the two will merge, the battle between them is killing both companies. Of course the bigger question is will it get past the FCC and the Justice Department. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin recently pointed out, a combination would be barred under current rules. This is one of the reasons I was gun shy about going with XM/ Barron's to begin with. The ultimate answer would be for some monster sugar-daddy to step in and buy XM, like AT&T with annual revenues of $63 billion. Question is, would they jump now when it would take $5 billion to buy XMSR at the current stock price + debt (enterprise value). In the meantime XM will probably sell more stock to stay in business and pay the bills......scary way to run a company.
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