kbotc Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 Forecast and Lines Cool little "At a glance tools" from the people who made the Dark Sky iPhone app. They have beautiful graphs/maps to visually represent model data (Including their own). What do people think of this? A cool way to introduce people to long range forecasting to show model variability? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginx snewx Posted October 26, 2013 Share Posted October 26, 2013 Forecast and Lines Cool little "At a glance tools" from the people who made the Dark Sky iPhone app. They have beautiful graphs/maps to visually represent model data (Including their own). What do people think of this? A cool way to introduce people to long range forecasting to show model variability? love it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunder Road Posted October 26, 2013 Share Posted October 26, 2013 Stupid. Forecasts to the hundredth of a degree 7 days out? And their "forecast" in the long range is really just the mean of two data points, the GFS and GGEM? Where's the value in that? It's all pretty and shiny but it lacks any new or useful meteorological information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginx snewx Posted October 26, 2013 Share Posted October 26, 2013 Stupid. Forecasts to the hundredth of a degree 7 days out? And their "forecast" in the long range is really just the mean of two data points, the GFS and GGEM? Where's the value in that? It's all pretty and shiny but it lacks any new or useful meteorological information. really? the model outputs are very cool. did you even browse? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rygar Posted October 26, 2013 Share Posted October 26, 2013 Very cool stuff. Next they need 850 temps for the lines site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunder Road Posted October 26, 2013 Share Posted October 26, 2013 really? the model outputs are very cool. did you even browse? What model outputs? You mean the lines? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wow Posted October 26, 2013 Share Posted October 26, 2013 They're just using Highcharts, a jQuery plugin. I'm using it myself for my PWS site I'm just starting: http://wow.americanwx.com/wxstation/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cory Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 Stupid. Forecasts to the hundredth of a degree 7 days out? And their "forecast" in the long range is really just the mean of two data points, the GFS and GGEM? Where's the value in that? It's all pretty and shiny but it lacks any new or useful meteorological information. I'm confused. Why is that stupid? And why is there no value in having a visual comparison of several models when you hover over a time point? All models dump their numbers with decimal places...they have to be rounded if you want them cleaned up for text output or meteograms (or "lines"). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginx snewx Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 The time machine is basic but valuable for me, easy to look up date specific weather and temps which I need from time to time in my occupation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginx snewx Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 On my phone now, better on the PC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunder Road Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 I'm confused. Why is that stupid? And why is there no value in having a visual comparison of several models when you hover over a time point? All models dump their numbers with decimal places...they have to be rounded if you want them cleaned up for text output or meteograms (or "lines"). Because it's just that - a meteogram. It can be a useful tool in making a forecast, but it by itself is not a forecast. It would be a different case if this site was intended for a meteorological audience, but I'm pretty sure it isn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cory Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 Because it's just that - a meteogram. It can be a useful tool in making a forecast, but it by itself is not a forecast. It would be a different case if this site was intended for a meteorological audience, but I'm pretty sure it isn't. Your original complaint is that it lacked any new or useful meteorological information. How an instant side-by-side comparison of models is not useful, I don't know. I don't know their intent behind creating the site (the description doesn't specify general public or professionals), but the "about" section seems to be rather open about their data sources and what they're doing with them. A layman can run their mouse over the lines and see a jumbled bump in the precipitation lines, and be able to tell it'll probably rain around that time--the same thing a meteorologist is going to do when making a forecast. I still see nothing wrong with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thunder Road Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 Your original complaint is that it lacked any new or useful meteorological information. How an instant side-by-side comparison of models is not useful, I don't know. I don't know their intent behind creating the site (the description doesn't specify general public or professionals), but the "about" section seems to be rather open about their data sources and what they're doing with them. A layman can run their mouse over the lines and see a jumbled bump in the precipitation lines, and be able to tell it'll probably rain around that time--the same thing a meteorologist is going to do when making a forecast. I still see nothing wrong with it. It's useful, it's just not a forecast. When it comes to the general public, I consider "meteorological information" to be more than raw data, since generally speaking, the public doesn't know what to do with that data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbotc Posted October 29, 2013 Author Share Posted October 29, 2013 Because it's just that - a meteogram. It can be a useful tool in making a forecast, but it by itself is not a forecast. It would be a different case if this site was intended for a meteorological audience, but I'm pretty sure it isn't. This is actually a tech demo for their weather at a glance API. I'd say the actual "forecast.io" site (Not Lines) is a forecasting site since they're actually producing 5 day forecasts there at the bottom. https://developer.forecast.io/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
icebreaker5221 Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 Pretty sure their text descriptions of the weather need a bit more tuning. Right now for here in Miami, the NAM has a small amount of precip for tomorrow night (0.02), with the rest of the models <0.01" for the entire week through Sun, with perhaps a slight chance of rain by Mon. It should also be mostly sunny. The text caption: "Light rain off-and-on throughout the week". My bet would be that would give most people the impression of some light rain almost every day and probably mostly cloudy in their minds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbotc Posted October 29, 2013 Author Share Posted October 29, 2013 Pretty sure their text descriptions of the weather need a bit more tuning. Right now for here in Miami, the NAM has a small amount of precip for tomorrow night (0.02), with the rest of the models <0.01" for the entire week through Sun, with perhaps a slight chance of rain by Mon. It should also be mostly sunny. The text caption: "Light rain off-and-on throughout the week". My bet would be that would give most people the impression of some light rain almost every day and probably mostly cloudy in their minds. They may be reading this thread: Now it says "Light rain on Sunday; temperatures peaking at 87° on Saturday." I'm sure they'd love feedback since they're very interested in modifying for local biases and wording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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