LocoAko Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 The NSSL has released an app for mobile devices as part of their Precipitation Identification Near the Ground project (more information available here: http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/ping/). As the app description states, the project goal is to help refine radar algorithms, including the Hydrometeor Classification Algorithm, by receiving ground reports from all sorts of locations in real-time, not just at airports. While the HCA is useful, it obviously is bound by the lowest radar elevation scan, so ground-truth is an important tool in improving these algorithms. Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mping/id584383400?mt=8 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=edu.ou.cimms.wping Just thought I'd pass this along to hopefully spread the word, because the more people, the better. On a side note, it is great to see mobile devices & social media take on an increasingly important role in not only warning dissemination, but research. Mods, feel free to move to the Marketplace if it is felt to be inappropriate for this forum. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isohume Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 The NSSL has released an app for mobile devices as part of their Precipitation Identification Near the Ground project (more information available here: http://www.nssl.noaa.../projects/ping/). As the app description states, the project goal is to help refine radar algorithms, including the Hydrometeor Classification Algorithm, by receiving ground reports from all sorts of locations in real-time, not just at airports. While the HCA is useful, it obviously is bound by the lowest radar elevation scan, so ground-truth is an important tool in improving these algorithms. Apple: https://itunes.apple...d584383400?mt=8 Android: https://play.google.....ou.cimms.wping Just thought I'd pass this along to hopefully spread the word, because the more people, the better. On a side note, it is great to see mobile devices & social media take on an increasingly important role in not only warning dissemination, but research. Mods, feel free to move to the Marketplace if it is felt to be inappropriate for this forum. Thanks! That's a good idea, but there are way more reports received by the NWS than just airports. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LocoAko Posted December 18, 2012 Author Share Posted December 18, 2012 That's a good idea, but there are way more reports received by the NWS than just airports. This is true, I definitely misspoke (mistyped?). I guess the incentive is to get specific coordinates and exact times via mobile GPS services as well as capitalizing on people's love of phones/apps. I assume the mention of airports in the app description was just a layman explanation for the public. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellinwood Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Been waiting for something like this. With the explosion of obs and reports on Twitter and even on places like AmWx you can track the rain/snow line and other things live via the web without ever looking at the radar. Now with the ability to report it directly to an official source from a dedicated app, the data can be more effectively collected, researched and implemented. Gonna be some good results from this I'm sure. All downloaded and ready for the inevitable changeover that will come with the next winter storm IMBY. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hm8 Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Great idea but pretty janky app right now...GPS location is constantly updating/shifting by a few yards every 30 secs which has gotta be murder on your battery (and unnecessary)...if GPS is turned off it just defaults you to Tulsa, OK instead of turning it on...no option for normal snow, only "wet snow"...the settings button that comes up when you go to the menu does nothing when you press it....no option to exit the app so even when you leave it its still updating the GPS in the background. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LocoAko Posted December 18, 2012 Author Share Posted December 18, 2012 Great idea but pretty janky app right now...GPS location is constantly updating/shifting by a few yards every 30 secs which has gotta be murder on your battery (and unnecessary)...if GPS is turned off it just defaults you to Tulsa, OK instead of turning it on...no option for normal snow, only "wet snow"...the settings button that comes up when you go to the menu does nothing when you press it....no option to exit the app so even when you leave it its still updating the GPS in the background. I just tried it out and am also having problems with the GPS which is killing my battery. Definitely contact them (contact info given at the PING website) with these concerns so they can be addressed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellinwood Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Hadn't tried it out yet... yeah there's definitely a good deal of room for improvement with the app itself. GPS thing isn't as much of a concern for me as I only have GPS turned on when I'm using an app that needs it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hm8 Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Forgot to mention I'm on Android Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wxmeddler Posted December 18, 2012 Share Posted December 18, 2012 Downloaded for Android, locked onto my GPS within 5 seconds. Seems to work fine. I've known about this project for awhile and love the concept, nice to see it now on a mobile platform. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LocoAko Posted December 18, 2012 Author Share Posted December 18, 2012 http://www.nssl.noaa...play/phone.html Real-time loops of mobile reports with box-zoom, etc. Great stuff. If you go back to this morning you can see the surge of new test reports as the app was released, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eskimo Joe Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Downloaded for Android, locked onto my GPS within 5 seconds. Seems to work fine. I've known about this project for awhile and love the concept, nice to see it now on a mobile platform. Only downside with the GPS is that if you don't have it turned on, you location seems to default to Norman, OK. Otherwise this seems like a neat app. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cory Posted December 25, 2012 Share Posted December 25, 2012 Pretty cool idea; I shared the info with coworkers. Now if we could get some precip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klelmore Posted December 27, 2012 Share Posted December 27, 2012 I'm Kim Elmore, a research meteorologist with OU at the National Severe Storms Lab in Norman, OK, and I've just joined the forums. I'm also the project lead for the PING project. I'd like everyone to know that the Android app was upgraded to v1.1 on Dec 19th. The GPS issues have been resolved. The changes are: 1. Uses cell tower based location until GPS fix is obtained, so those of you in tall buildings or poor GPS reception can still use the app. 2. The app lets go of the GPS immediately when you navigate away instead of waiting for the app to get passivated by the os. So battery use should be more friendly now. 3. Ability to view submitted reports. 4. More categories. 5. A marker on the map that indicates the location. There is a limited mobile page with which you can view submitted reports (http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/ping/display/phone.html) and more more capable page at http;//www.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/ping/display. Please be aware that both of these sites are essentially still in beta: we already know that we have to change the way we process data to display so that the display doesn't get bogged down and slow, which is what is happening now with the observation load increase. Please don't let this dissuade you from entering reports! We can handle the data ingest without problems. Simply be aware that the display will get slow until we can make some changes. If you're wondering why there hasn't been a major "News Release" yet, it's because such things must go through NOAA headquarters and OU public relations for review and coordination. Almost all of OU (and a lot of NOAA that deals with stuff like this) is off until Jan 2nd, so the major "News Release" is scheduled for Jan 9 at the Annual AMS meeting in Austin, TX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eskimo Joe Posted December 27, 2012 Share Posted December 27, 2012 Kim the update has dramatically improved the app on my Android phone. Nice work, mind if I ask how many people are on the team as a whole? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klelmore Posted December 28, 2012 Share Posted December 28, 2012 Kim the update has dramatically improved the app on my Android phone. Nice work, mind if I ask how many people are on the team as a whole? Thanks! The answer depends on how and who/what you count. The iOS PING app was developed for free by a grad student, out of the goodness of his heart. The Android app was developed (in a bit less than two weeks) by one of the software engineers here at NSSL via some time pried loose from other responsibilities. The web display page was done by a developer whose time was taken essentially out of hide. Data base management is an offshoot of funded research back in 2006, when PING got its start locally using the KOUN test bed WSR-88D dual-pol radar. I am funded to actually use the observations -- creating a way to get them is not my primary responsibility, but someone has to do it. Besides me, none of those I've mentioned so far are responsible for the algorithm development The team assigned to generate a winter surface hydrometeor classification algorithm (and, incidentally, a hail sizing algorithm) includes six additional people besides me -- one of which is the only software engineer explicitly assigned to this research. So, again, the answer depends on how you count! On paper, it's seven. I'm the only one looking after the PING development and I also do the statistical data-driven algorithm development. Others are experts in radar propagation characteristics, radar instrumentation characteristics, base data processing, numerical models and model characteristics. Five of us are meteorologists, one is a radar physicist/engineer, and one is a software engineer. Does that make things clearer of foggier? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isohume Posted December 30, 2012 Share Posted December 30, 2012 I'm Kim Elmore, a research meteorologist with OU at the National Severe Storms Lab in Norman, OK, and I've just joined the forums. I'm also the project lead for the PING project. I'd like everyone to know that the Android app was upgraded to v1.1 on Dec 19th. The GPS issues have been resolved. The changes are: 1. Uses cell tower based location until GPS fix is obtained, so those of you in tall buildings or poor GPS reception can still use the app. 2. The app lets go of the GPS immediately when you navigate away instead of waiting for the app to get passivated by the os. So battery use should be more friendly now. 3. Ability to view submitted reports. 4. More categories. 5. A marker on the map that indicates the location. There is a limited mobile page with which you can view submitted reports (http://www.nssl.noaa...play/phone.html) and more more capable page at http;//www.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/ping/display. Please be aware that both of these sites are essentially still in beta: we already know that we have to change the way we process data to display so that the display doesn't get bogged down and slow, which is what is happening now with the observation load increase. Please don't let this dissuade you from entering reports! We can handle the data ingest without problems. Simply be aware that the display will get slow until we can make some changes. If you're wondering why there hasn't been a major "News Release" yet, it's because such things must go through NOAA headquarters and OU public relations for review and coordination. Almost all of OU (and a lot of NOAA that deals with stuff like this) is off until Jan 2nd, so the major "News Release" is scheduled for Jan 9 at the Annual AMS meeting in Austin, TX. Hey great app and display page! One question tho. Will the "Text" button display the data with lat/longs? I clicked on it, but it may not be operational yet. That data would work great with our PNS and mapping scripts. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klelmore Posted December 31, 2012 Share Posted December 31, 2012 You are most welcome! No, the "text" button isn't yet operational. When it is, you will see the raw data entries as ASCII text in a new panel and they will include lat/lon/time. Times from apps are UTC while times from obs submitted on the web are based on whatever the observer entered as their time zone. You can then cut and past that into whatever you wish. We do not write to any files on the client computer for security reasons, so it's a bit klunky. That's imposed on us because we're a government lab: we have to abide by NOAA security policies. I'm sure someone more clever than I am could write a script that periodically downloads obs then knows how to cut and paste from whatever comes up, but it certainly isn't me! I simply access our secure data base and research away. Oh and, yes, we know the mobile display page is currently broken. It's still under development and, well, stuff happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turtle Posted December 31, 2012 Share Posted December 31, 2012 I'm Kim Elmore, a research meteorologist with OU at the National Severe Storms Lab in Norman, OK, and I've just joined the forums. I'm also the project lead for the PING project. I'd like everyone to know that the Android app was upgraded to v1.1 on Dec 19th. The GPS issues have been resolved. The changes are: 1. Uses cell tower based location until GPS fix is obtained, so those of you in tall buildings or poor GPS reception can still use the app. 2. The app lets go of the GPS immediately when you navigate away instead of waiting for the app to get passivated by the os. So battery use should be more friendly now. 3. Ability to view submitted reports. 4. More categories. 5. A marker on the map that indicates the location. There is a limited mobile page with which you can view submitted reports (http://www.nssl.noaa...play/phone.html) and more more capable page at http;//www.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/ping/display. Please be aware that both of these sites are essentially still in beta: we already know that we have to change the way we process data to display so that the display doesn't get bogged down and slow, which is what is happening now with the observation load increase. Please don't let this dissuade you from entering reports! We can handle the data ingest without problems. Simply be aware that the display will get slow until we can make some changes. If you're wondering why there hasn't been a major "News Release" yet, it's because such things must go through NOAA headquarters and OU public relations for review and coordination. Almost all of OU (and a lot of NOAA that deals with stuff like this) is off until Jan 2nd, so the major "News Release" is scheduled for Jan 9 at the Annual AMS meeting in Austin, TX. Hello Kim! EVT from KBOX here. I'm not sure if you were the one that tweeted the other day during our snowstorm on our Twitter page (@NWSBoston), but someone sent a message about the PING online reporting program (http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/ping/). We were pretty busy on the overnight shift, so I didn't get a chance to send our reports and what we noted about the rain/snow line. Glad I was able to retweet your message to followers of SNEwx on Twitter. I'm not big on social media, but learning because we do it at work. I saw a presentation about the PING project at one of several meetings I attended over the last few years. I think it was at the NWA meeting in Madison last October, or it could have been earlier. Can't seem to pinpoint which NWA meeting this was presented at. Anyway, it's a great project. Wish I could have helped more, but I do have details about the rain/snow line as it moved back to the east late on 12/29. PM me and I can e-mail a note to you directly. --Turtle (AKA Eleanor) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isohume Posted December 31, 2012 Share Posted December 31, 2012 You are most welcome! No, the "text" button isn't yet operational. When it is, you will see the raw data entries as ASCII text in a new panel and they will include lat/lon/time. Times from apps are UTC while times from obs submitted on the web are based on whatever the observer entered as their time zone. You can then cut and past that into whatever you wish. We do not write to any files on the client computer for security reasons, so it's a bit klunky. That's imposed on us because we're a government lab: we have to abide by NOAA security policies. I'm sure someone more clever than I am could write a script that periodically downloads obs then knows how to cut and paste from whatever comes up, but it certainly isn't me! I simply access our secure data base and research away. Oh and, yes, we know the mobile display page is currently broken. It's still under development and, well, stuff happens. That sounds excellent. Looking forward to the data and we'll be promoting the app on our FB page. Thanks again and great project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MN Transplant Posted January 29, 2013 Share Posted January 29, 2013 Just caught this nice article about mPING via the AMS Newsletter: http://callcenterinfo.tmcnet.com/news/2013/01/28/6880794.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LocoAko Posted February 8, 2013 Author Share Posted February 8, 2013 Bump for this upcoming blizzard - great opportunity to provide vital reports, especially in the mixing zones! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eskimo Joe Posted February 13, 2013 Share Posted February 13, 2013 Does that make things clearer of foggier? That actually answered my question pretty well, seems like a dedicated team wearing several hats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LocoAko Posted February 13, 2013 Author Share Posted February 13, 2013 The story has made NPR. http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/02/13/171715999/this-app-uses-the-power-of-you-to-report-the-weather Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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