WilmingtonWx FREE Placefiles

[Brandon Schmidt]

WilmingtonWx FREE GRLevelX Placefiles & Subscription USPLN Lightning Placefiles

Late this August I started writing a few java programs that periodically wrote placefiles locally so that I could use them with GR programs. Realizing this would be much easier utilizing PHP, I started translating the scripts and found it would be easiest to buy a domain for the scripts to run on. I really took to it and over time just wrote more and more files for various products.

My website is http://www.wilmingtonwx.com and all placefiles can be found under the "Placefiles" tab. Among many others, special weather statement, tornado watch, mesoscale discussion, and convective outlook placefiles are all available with more likely to come in the future. I am very open to suggestions, customizations, and changes so let me know if you have any requests. If you come across any issues or find bugs, please contact me so I can resolve them. Sustenance of these resources is provided through donations and out of pocket costs so they should be around for a while. I know there are other free providers out there but I hope some will find these resources useful.

- Brandon

 

[Brandon Schmidt]

Great improvements to the site have been made over the last few months. This update is copied from my site's homepage. You can also PM me here if you are interested.

Over the past 6-7 months, WilmingtonWx has received an increasingly exponential visitor following. Initial monthly user usage reports indicating jumps of around 100 users per month whereas recent trends have increased to anywhere from 300 to 400 per month. At this rate, usage will reach around 1300 users very soon and with this comes an increase in hosting resource needs. At the root of this endeavor are ideas of keeping the data free so if you're thinking I'm going to end up talking about paid subscriptions, that isn't where I'm going with this...sort of. To help offset monthly hosting expenses in addition to keeping placefile data free, I will be looking into distributing lightning data on a month-by-month basis to users who are willing to purchase it. Having said that, If you are at all interested, even in the slightest bit, send me and email ([email protected]) or PM me on the GRLevelX owners forums (www.grlevelx.com/owners/ if you don't have an account, you should register asap) including your name, what you would like to see with lightning data and how much you would be willing to pay either monthly or yearly. This means users cumulatively will determine the price and in the end, support sustenance and improvement of www.wilmingtonwx.com. In other words, more advanced feeds like GRIB2 RAP and HRRR model data in addition to MODIS fire data and other observation feeds will become publicly available as a result of greater funds for hosting. Existing services will also become faster and more reliable. Thank you for your time and I hope to receive your responses. - Brandon, WilmingtonWx GRLevelX Resources

 

[Brett Roberts]

Brandon, thanks for making these available! My longtime source for SPC placefiles does not seem to work these days, so I've switched over to yours.

 

[Brandon Schmidt]

Updated information:

USPLN lightning placefiles are now available - and have been for a couple of months now. If you're interested in a free trial or if you've got any questions, comment here, PM me, or shoot me an email. I'm very open to comments and suggestions. Lastly, I have several new placefiles to release soon including GOES visible satellite imagery, CWOP/ARPS observation plots (courtesy of The University of Utah's MesoWest team), county based severe warnings, and a handful more...check back soon.

More detailed and frequent updates are posted on the GRLevelX owners forum but I like to get overview updates on multiple forums for users who haven't signed up over there yet ("yet" because if you're not a member on the owners, you definitely should be!).

-Brandon