Weathertap Radarlab HD

[Bill Tabor]

Was just checking out the storms near LBB in Weathertap and noticed the 'Radarlab HD' icon at the bottom of the nexrad local radar screen. I clicked it and it took me to a Java app that loaded up a high definition radar application with lots of bells and whistles. This appears to be very high res radar. I'm wondering if they are tapped into the new NWS radar standards product. I can see the outflow boundaries in incredible detail. This appears to be a future competitor to GrLevelX. It has multiple layer capabilitiy and loads different types of backgrounds, roads, lightning, warnings, tracks, animations, filters, etc, etc, etc. You'd have to see it to know what I'm talking about. Right now all I see is Base Reflectivity, but I'm thinking it will soon support other products such as Storm Relative Motion. Very cool. I don't see any links on the front of the site or anywhere within talking about it. If you have access to Weathertap check it out. They also have a link for a free trial on the main page which I imagine will let you see it too.

www.weathertap.com

 

[J Kinkaid]

Just sighned up for the free trial

 

[Joey Ketcham]

I have to admit, that's very cool!

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Still playing with it, this is almost cool enough that I'm about ready to start paying a monthly subscription to have it.

 

[J Kinkaid]

Still playing with it, this is almost cool enough that I'm about ready to start paying a monthly subscription to have it.

$7 a month seems like a bargain. No one comes close to beating there sat images

 

[Doug_Kiesling]

Wow that is pretty freaking cool! All it needs now is a GPS tracker and they would end up owning the market.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Wow that is pretty freaking cool! All it needs now is a GPS tracker and they would end up owning the market.

That would rock!

I still love GRLevel3, but this is right up there with GRLevel3.

 

[Dave Carroll]

WxTap RadarlabHD

I first noticed it last night, and after playing with it for a while, it does have some cool features. I've long subscribed to Weathertap and use it as a back-up to GrLevel3. As noted above, their satellite imagery is great; plus, something cool you can do if you have a VERY slow cell connection on the road (even analog): they have a PDA version that includes base reflectivity images which load in a flash on a cruddy cell connection, and have enough resolution on a laptop to at least check out what is firing around you. Certainly worth about $75 bucks a year!

 

[Bill Hark]

I am enjoying radarlabHD. I did have to load an updated version of Java first. The program has good detail, zooming, surface obs, lightning and warnings. Storm tracks can also be plotted. There is a separate table that can be called up with storm attributes ie dbz, meso, TVS etc.
Unfortunately, when just looking at the radar image, there is no indication of meso or TVS unless I go to the table and match the storm number with the listing on the table. I would prefer a different notation by the storm imnage on radar if there is a meso or tvs without having to go to the table.

Bill Hark

 

[mrobinett]

I stumbled across it last night tracking the cells near Dora, NM. I could clearly see what appeared to be a hook that on regular Weathertap looked all pixelated and hard to see, I wasnt sure if it smoothed it and it appeared as a hook.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

$7 a month seems like a bargain. No one comes close to beating there sat images

Anyone have a screenshot? The CIRA GOES 11 and GOES 12 imagery seems like it'd be really hard to beat resolution wise.

 

[Mike McDonald]

Attached are screen grabs at native resolution from the CIRA site, WeatherTAP's normal satellite imagery and the satellite overlay in the new RadarlabHD. I had to trim them down to meet the attachment size limits.

All three show the CONEKS area of the same storms yesterday (3/24). I tried to get them from the same satellite image time, but it looks like the RadarlabHD image is different than the other two.

Having used both the CIRA site and WeatherTAP for a few years, I think the imagery from both sources is about equal in quality and resolution. The biggest difference is that the CIRA images are at an angled projection while the WeatherTAP images are in a vertical projection.

Mike

 

[Gerrit Gulden]

I must say that RadarlabHD's radar is quite nice. I think the only flaw is the Java mechanism, for some this takes a while to load, would like to see this as a Weather app. Other than the java mechanism, once RadarLab HD gets going the result is great.

I still wonder whether or not Accuracy is a concern with oversmoothed radar. RadarLabHD does filter out alot of the lower dbz returns compared to a standard Composite Radar loop. In all RadarLabHD's radar is beautiful.

 

[ssimmons]

It is nice to see all the positive posts about RadarLab HD. I am one of the developers of this program. One of your members, Dave Carroll, sent us a link to this discussion about RadarLab HD a few days ago. The program is in a beta phase and we are making tweaks here and there. If you can think of any suggestions that would improve the product, please let me know. I've already implemented Bill Hark's suggestion concerning the Storm Tracks. I added the capability to display TVS, MESO and Hail Storm Tracks each with a different color. You can save your own colors for these in the "Default" tab of the settings window. You can also change them using the Storm Table window. I've also added a tooltip for each displayed Storm Track. Now when the mouse moves over the Track centroid, it displays all the information that is listed in the Storm Table. These changes are not out there yet as I just finished coding it a few minutes ago. I should have them out there in the morning and I'll let you guys know when they are there.

To make sure your computer downloads the latest version, you should clear your Java cache. This is done in Windows by bring up the Control Panel (Start->Control Panel or Start->Settings->Control Panel) and clicking on the "Java" icon. This brings up the Java Control Panel. Now click on the "Delete Files" button at the bottom of the page. Now click on the "OK" button at the bottom of the next window. This will remove RadarLab HD from your cache and force it to download the next time you select a site from the web site.

One other suggestion that Doub Kiesling had was to add a GPS tracker to the program. I'm looking at the possibility of adding GPS receiver capability. I'm still not sure if this is possible with Java Web Start, but I'm looking into it.

Again, any suggestions you may have will be helpful. Thanks for your time.

 

[ssimmons]

I have the new Storm Track enhancement uploaded to the web site. Be sure to clear your Java cache before accessing RadarLab HD from the site. If you have any questions just let me know. Thanks.