Hello, I was quite excited to download a new program called Storm
Predator. I got it off downloads.com and its basically a program
which downloads Nexrad doppler radar data and has a bunch of nifty
utilties. If you click on a spot on the radar map it will tell you
all sorts of details about the rain intensity on that pixel. It lets
you guage distances on the map by click and dragging a line, and even
lets you calculate ETA of the storm based on distance and storm speed.

This stuff is all pretty cool, but I'm not completely satisfied with
the program. My main gripe is the interface, which is based on a
circular radar screen, which should be a square window. The buttons
are all arrayed around the round screen and it ends up trying to look
so cool that its not practical.

I was wondering if there are any other programs out there that
download nexrad data and allow you to analyze it? Any other cool
weather programs?

Thanks,
Dub

Two very good ones : Stormlab
http://www.interwarn.com/

and , in my opinion even better : Nexrad 3
http://www.hurricanealley.net/


Both of which are better, again in my opinion, than stormpredator




Op 12 Oct 2003 13:56:27 -0700 schreef (Dubs):

Hello, I was quite excited to download a new program called Storm
Predator. I got it off downloads.com and its basically a program
which downloads Nexrad doppler radar data and has a bunch of nifty
utilties. If you click on a spot on the radar map it will tell you
all sorts of details about the rain intensity on that pixel. It lets
you guage distances on the map by click and dragging a line, and even
lets you calculate ETA of the storm based on distance and storm speed.

This stuff is all pretty cool, but I'm not completely satisfied with
the program. My main gripe is the interface, which is based on a
circular radar screen, which should be a square window. The buttons
are all arrayed around the round screen and it ends up trying to look
so cool that its not practical.

I was wondering if there are any other programs out there that
download nexrad data and allow you to analyze it? Any other cool
weather programs?

Thanks,
Dub

"rikkie" wrote in message
...

and , in my opinion even better : Nexrad 3
http://www.hurricanealley.net/

Can't seem to find it there... is it now located elsewhere?

Privacy, please wrote:
"rikkie" wrote in message
...

and , in my opinion even better : Nexrad 3
http://www.hurricanealley.net/

Can't seem to find it there... is it now located elsewhere?

It is about 1/3 down the page. Try this link. Should take you right to the
info: http://www.cafeshops.com/hurricanealley.5885792

Here is the link to the demo page http://www.hurricanealley.net/nexrad.html.
This is by far the best Nexrad product out. Follow the operation notes and
you can download maps for radar down to street level.



"Privacy, please" wrote in message
...
"rikkie" wrote in message
...

and , in my opinion even better : Nexrad 3
http://www.hurricanealley.net/

Can't seem to find it there... is it now located elsewhere?

Here's what I'm looking for (which may be variously available by website
and not software):

I'd like so see monthly and annual precipitation totals for my state as
a function of compiled radar scans. I'd also like to see lightning
strikes recorded similarly. (My goal, as you might guess, is to discover
the stormiest nearby "microclimate".)

--

Reply to sans two @@, or your reply won't reach me.

"An election is nothing more than an advance auction of stolen goods."
-- Ambrose Bierce

I must agree. I think the prg is a great tool but visually, terrible. It
looks like an mp3 player! I would have bought it but it looks to silly.

Anyway, Nexrad 3 is by far the best! It's priced right as well.

Good Luck!


"Privacy, please" wrote in message
...
"rikkie" wrote in message
...

and , in my opinion even better : Nexrad 3
http://www.hurricanealley.net/

Can't seem to find it there... is it now located elsewhere?

Hello-

I'm the author of the StormPredator program, and I thought I'd write
in to clear up the issue of why we decided to go with a round
presentation rather than square, plus add a few more thoughts.

First, all radar data/imagery is "round" to start with, even though it
may be presented rectangularly on web imagery. Our experience with our
earlier version of the program DesktopDoppler taught us that in the
hands of the layman, this could be a liability.

You see, the corners of the NEXRAD images produced by the NWS contain
no data, as its automatically limited by the beam max radius when the
picture is created from range-azimuth raw data to mapped cartesian
coordinates...and what we discovered, was that people can get a false
sense of security if the areas of interest occur in those corners of
the rectangle- because they don't see cells there.

Since I've worked on WSR-3, WSR-57, and WSR-74 radars with PPI
displays, I thought this would be a good opportunity to speak to the
true lineage of analog radar by solving the presentation problem
above, as well as being able to offer some true "analog" style
features in a circular presentation, for example range rings which can
be brought up by pressing ALT-R. The circular look was a combination
of analog retro mimicking a real PPI display and the need to solve the
corners problem for the layman.

The chief tech at Wallops Island NWS satellite uplink (Dennis Cope)
was so impressed by the circular presentation of StormPredator, he
mounted a SVGA monitor to an instrument panel with a circular cutout
so he could have a PPI display like he was used to seeing!

Custom overlays can be substituted for the range rings, and custom
basemaps can be put under the radar data too. Plus we have a distance
tool and an path/ETA wizard too.

A new release coming soon will have the option of displaying a full
screen rectangular mode for those that want it. BTW you can make the
side control panel go away by pressing the SPACE bar, and be left with
just the "scope" onscreen.

Also, there is are quite a number of features enabled by hotkeys which
you may have missed, such as the national NEXRAD radar summary (F5)
and many others...see the Help button for the hotkey list.

The other thing we wanted to do with this program is to reach a
broader market of weather enthusiasts that just the true "met-head"
types. While I'll be the first to agree that StormLab has a plethora
of features, in the hands of the layman, they can be confusing...you
practically have to have a Unisys WSR88D operators license to run it.
Now thats fine if you want to do research and know what you are doing,
but if you are just a regular person whos interested in meteorology,
we think that StormPredator is more user friendly because you don't
have to know about all the WSR88 modes to interpret it and run it.

The other problem that StormLab has is that they are using the FTP
connection into the NWS server, and that FTP connection is now being
overloaded to the point that StormLab is considering making their
program a separate subscription connection...because of complaints
about update speed....actually I hope they do, because the FTP service
is lower bandwidth and was designed for professional use, not for
commercial programs to use.

We chose to use the high bandwidth publicly available HTTP
connections, which are designed to handle huge traffic generated by
the public, thus sparing the overloaded FTP connection for those who
really need it for true professional use. StormPredator, even on a
modem updates its images in just a few seconds because the HTTP NWS
server is so much faster and has so much more bandwidth.

I hope this answers your concerns. I welcome any and all comments on
the program which can be downloaded at http://www.stormpredator.com We
have a users forum there in Tech Support as well.

Best regards
Anthony Watts
IntelliWeather


(Dubs) wrote in message om...
Hello, I was quite excited to download a new program called Storm
Predator. I got it off downloads.com and its basically a program
which downloads Nexrad doppler radar data and has a bunch of nifty
utilties. If you click on a spot on the radar map it will tell you
all sorts of details about the rain intensity on that pixel. It lets
you guage distances on the map by click and dragging a line, and even
lets you calculate ETA of the storm based on distance and storm speed.

This stuff is all pretty cool, but I'm not completely satisfied with
the program. My main gripe is the interface, which is based on a
circular radar screen, which should be a square window. The buttons
are all arrayed around the round screen and it ends up trying to look
so cool that its not practical.

I was wondering if there are any other programs out there that
download nexrad data and allow you to analyze it? Any other cool
weather programs?

Thanks,
Dub

Don't forget to mention that both NEXRAD and Stormlab work outside the
USA , whereas Stormpredator doesn't Now I'm hearing you ask : "why
would someone outsie the USA be interested in US radar -data ? " .
Simple reason : weather-enthusiasts all over the world are interested
in Weather all over the world ( hurricanes don't hit Europe , but
still you'll see extensive coverage of the hurricane season on
european websites , same applies to tornadoes and other extreme
weather : here's already two reasons to be interested in US-Radar ) .

Rik Wessels
Head moderator : www.pro-weather.com



Op 14 Oct 2003 10:00:44 -0700 schreef
(Anthony - IntelliWeather):

Hello-

I'm the author of the StormPredator program, and I thought I'd write
in to clear up the issue of why we decided to go with a round
presentation rather than square, plus add a few more thoughts.

First, all radar data/imagery is "round" to start with, even though it
may be presented rectangularly on web imagery. Our experience with our
earlier version of the program DesktopDoppler taught us that in the
hands of the layman, this could be a liability.

You see, the corners of the NEXRAD images produced by the NWS contain
no data, as its automatically limited by the beam max radius when the
picture is created from range-azimuth raw data to mapped cartesian
coordinates...and what we discovered, was that people can get a false
sense of security if the areas of interest occur in those corners of
the rectangle- because they don't see cells there.

Since I've worked on WSR-3, WSR-57, and WSR-74 radars with PPI
displays, I thought this would be a good opportunity to speak to the
true lineage of analog radar by solving the presentation problem
above, as well as being able to offer some true "analog" style
features in a circular presentation, for example range rings which can
be brought up by pressing ALT-R. The circular look was a combination
of analog retro mimicking a real PPI display and the need to solve the
corners problem for the layman.

The chief tech at Wallops Island NWS satellite uplink (Dennis Cope)
was so impressed by the circular presentation of StormPredator, he
mounted a SVGA monitor to an instrument panel with a circular cutout
so he could have a PPI display like he was used to seeing!

Custom overlays can be substituted for the range rings, and custom
basemaps can be put under the radar data too. Plus we have a distance
tool and an path/ETA wizard too.

A new release coming soon will have the option of displaying a full
screen rectangular mode for those that want it. BTW you can make the
side control panel go away by pressing the SPACE bar, and be left with
just the "scope" onscreen.

Also, there is are quite a number of features enabled by hotkeys which
you may have missed, such as the national NEXRAD radar summary (F5)
and many others...see the Help button for the hotkey list.

The other thing we wanted to do with this program is to reach a
broader market of weather enthusiasts that just the true "met-head"
types. While I'll be the first to agree that StormLab has a plethora
of features, in the hands of the layman, they can be confusing...you
practically have to have a Unisys WSR88D operators license to run it.
Now thats fine if you want to do research and know what you are doing,
but if you are just a regular person whos interested in meteorology,
we think that StormPredator is more user friendly because you don't
have to know about all the WSR88 modes to interpret it and run it.

The other problem that StormLab has is that they are using the FTP
connection into the NWS server, and that FTP connection is now being
overloaded to the point that StormLab is considering making their
program a separate subscription connection...because of complaints
about update speed....actually I hope they do, because the FTP service
is lower bandwidth and was designed for professional use, not for
commercial programs to use.

We chose to use the high bandwidth publicly available HTTP
connections, which are designed to handle huge traffic generated by
the public, thus sparing the overloaded FTP connection for those who
really need it for true professional use. StormPredator, even on a
modem updates its images in just a few seconds because the HTTP NWS
server is so much faster and has so much more bandwidth.

I hope this answers your concerns. I welcome any and all comments on
the program which can be downloaded at http://www.stormpredator.com We
have a users forum there in Tech Support as well.

Best regards
Anthony Watts
IntelliWeather


(Dubs) wrote in message om...
Hello, I was quite excited to download a new program called Storm
Predator. I got it off downloads.com and its basically a program
which downloads Nexrad doppler radar data and has a bunch of nifty
utilties. If you click on a spot on the radar map it will tell you
all sorts of details about the rain intensity on that pixel. It lets
you guage distances on the map by click and dragging a line, and even
lets you calculate ETA of the storm based on distance and storm speed.

This stuff is all pretty cool, but I'm not completely satisfied with
the program. My main gripe is the interface, which is based on a
circular radar screen, which should be a square window. The buttons
are all arrayed around the round screen and it ends up trying to look
so cool that its not practical.

I was wondering if there are any other programs out there that
download nexrad data and allow you to analyze it? Any other cool
weather programs?

Thanks,
Dub

Who cares if it works inside or outside the USA? Does it work for me and
the answer is yes, NEXRAD works and better. There are some nice features
like miles from location but both Stormlabs and Stormpredator don't offer
zoomed in street level radar. NEXRAD does. Using Stormlabs and
Stormpredator I can't really tell how close a storm is to the location I
want. With NEXRAD I get an accurate "exact" location of the storm.



"rikkie" wrote in message
...
Don't forget to mention that both NEXRAD and Stormlab work outside the
USA , whereas Stormpredator doesn't Now I'm hearing you ask : "why
would someone outsie the USA be interested in US radar -data ? " .
Simple reason : weather-enthusiasts all over the world are interested
in Weather all over the world ( hurricanes don't hit Europe , but
still you'll see extensive coverage of the hurricane season on
european websites , same applies to tornadoes and other extreme
weather : here's already two reasons to be interested in US-Radar ) .

Rik Wessels
Head moderator : www.pro-weather.com



Op 14 Oct 2003 10:00:44 -0700 schreef
(Anthony - IntelliWeather):

Hello-

I'm the author of the StormPredator program, and I thought I'd write
in to clear up the issue of why we decided to go with a round
presentation rather than square, plus add a few more thoughts.

First, all radar data/imagery is "round" to start with, even though it
may be presented rectangularly on web imagery. Our experience with our
earlier version of the program DesktopDoppler taught us that in the
hands of the layman, this could be a liability.

You see, the corners of the NEXRAD images produced by the NWS contain
no data, as its automatically limited by the beam max radius when the
picture is created from range-azimuth raw data to mapped cartesian
coordinates...and what we discovered, was that people can get a false
sense of security if the areas of interest occur in those corners of
the rectangle- because they don't see cells there.

Since I've worked on WSR-3, WSR-57, and WSR-74 radars with PPI
displays, I thought this would be a good opportunity to speak to the
true lineage of analog radar by solving the presentation problem
above, as well as being able to offer some true "analog" style
features in a circular presentation, for example range rings which can
be brought up by pressing ALT-R. The circular look was a combination
of analog retro mimicking a real PPI display and the need to solve the
corners problem for the layman.

The chief tech at Wallops Island NWS satellite uplink (Dennis Cope)
was so impressed by the circular presentation of StormPredator, he
mounted a SVGA monitor to an instrument panel with a circular cutout
so he could have a PPI display like he was used to seeing!

Custom overlays can be substituted for the range rings, and custom
basemaps can be put under the radar data too. Plus we have a distance
tool and an path/ETA wizard too.

A new release coming soon will have the option of displaying a full
screen rectangular mode for those that want it. BTW you can make the
side control panel go away by pressing the SPACE bar, and be left with
just the "scope" onscreen.

Also, there is are quite a number of features enabled by hotkeys which
you may have missed, such as the national NEXRAD radar summary (F5)
and many others...see the Help button for the hotkey list.

The other thing we wanted to do with this program is to reach a
broader market of weather enthusiasts that just the true "met-head"
types. While I'll be the first to agree that StormLab has a plethora
of features, in the hands of the layman, they can be confusing...you
practically have to have a Unisys WSR88D operators license to run it.
Now thats fine if you want to do research and know what you are doing,
but if you are just a regular person whos interested in meteorology,
we think that StormPredator is more user friendly because you don't
have to know about all the WSR88 modes to interpret it and run it.

The other problem that StormLab has is that they are using the FTP
connection into the NWS server, and that FTP connection is now being
overloaded to the point that StormLab is considering making their
program a separate subscription connection...because of complaints
about update speed....actually I hope they do, because the FTP service
is lower bandwidth and was designed for professional use, not for
commercial programs to use.

We chose to use the high bandwidth publicly available HTTP
connections, which are designed to handle huge traffic generated by
the public, thus sparing the overloaded FTP connection for those who
really need it for true professional use. StormPredator, even on a
modem updates its images in just a few seconds because the HTTP NWS
server is so much faster and has so much more bandwidth.

I hope this answers your concerns. I welcome any and all comments on
the program which can be downloaded at http://www.stormpredator.com We
have a users forum there in Tech Support as well.

Best regards
Anthony Watts
IntelliWeather


(Dubs) wrote in message
om...
Hello, I was quite excited to download a new program called Storm
Predator. I got it off downloads.com and its basically a program
which downloads Nexrad doppler radar data and has a bunch of nifty
utilties. If you click on a spot on the radar map it will tell you
all sorts of details about the rain intensity on that pixel. It lets
you guage distances on the map by click and dragging a line, and even
lets you calculate ETA of the storm based on distance and storm speed.

This stuff is all pretty cool, but I'm not completely satisfied with
the program. My main gripe is the interface, which is based on a
circular radar screen, which should be a square window. The buttons
are all arrayed around the round screen and it ends up trying to look
so cool that its not practical.

I was wondering if there are any other programs out there that
download nexrad data and allow you to analyze it? Any other cool
weather programs?

Thanks,
Dub