Weather Listen had some great features and sample configuration files including NEXRAD Level III data for three of the data products provided by NOAAPORT. It also had a way to download and generate forecasts for each weather zone in a state using data from the National Weather Service.

I think it is time I revisit this project and bring it to the community for processing weather information on the Internet. Some ideas I had was to make this for more than just HTTP data and also bring data from FTP servers and other data servers on the Internet. I also was thinking of integrating Web Services with the program and some database-driven features.

Weather Listen was a multi-threaded client for recieving weather data and I also think I need to add more time intervals since data can update faster and slower than the intervals I have set. Some of the intervals I need to make sure don’t overload servers by user error.

teamWeather won’t become a data provider, but will provide the programs to bring weather information to a user’s computer without depending on a satellite setup.

Weather Listen is not avaliable yet, but I plan to release some code soon that shows the power of some of the features implemented to simulate a “push” weather data system while it “pulls” the data. I will post some screenshots and more over the next few weeks as development progresses.

I will post some screenshots when I have the server live and some uses of the GIS data. Keep tuned to teamWeather for more information about iNoaaport GIS and all other teamWeather information.

These images are some samples that were taken from the live data feeds earlier and processed into nice maps with boundaries for both the United States and World. Geographical data was from both the APRS and National Weather Service’s GIS projects.

We hope you enjoy these sample images and we look forward to seeing more people help out on iNoaaport and contribute to iNoaaport to help out. Some things iNoaaport is looking for is data mirrors, people with NOAAPORT data access and also other GIS-related technologies.

Weather Plus for the United States version 1.0.5 has been released with new features such as enhanced radar and advisories, optional lightning data (requires a subscription from AllisonHouse and use of the GRLevelX place file), and storm tracks. This new version of Weather Plus for the United States also corrects some location-based issues and we believe it is the best build ever.

Weather Camera Map 1.5 has now been released as Weather Personal 1.6 with various bug fixes and new features. This new application called Weather Personal allows users to access weather cameras and weather stations that are user-contributed in a specified area. The GPS now doesn’t require Reverse Geocoding to find a location and uses the user’s latitude and longitude directly fixing many location issues.

We would like to thank these data sources for supplying information for our weather programs:

• National Weather Service
• GRLevelXMods (for Free Storm Track information)
• Weather Underground (Data for non-commerical use in the Applications)

We would also like to remind users that use Weather Plus for the United States that they must have a subscription to AllisonHouse for Lightning information and data. Those without a subscription are unable to get lightning data in the application.

The greatness of having a  weather camera is to protect your property also. We are not posting pictures of who did it, but between 8:12 and 8:22 am this morning we have pictures of a car who hit our fence on the front of our property and the person(s) involved are wanted and will be found.

Here are some snapshots from the fence being hit:

After we saw this happen I took a drive down the road and found fresh skidmarks going into a driveway between x Road and y Road in the township. These skidmarks where consistant with the marks in our area and a person was out in the road cleaning them up as I came back from where I was going.

Thanks,

Christopher Zenzel

In the next few weeks Apple will be looking at our Weather Plus for United States update for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. This update brings a lot of new features including Enhanced Radar, Subscription Placefile Access, and a update to the Advisories module.

Enhanced Radar

Using free data from the National Weather Service’s RIDGE Radar service you can now see warnings and advisories on the Radar display as well as Advanced Radar images called “Enhanced Radar” from the RIDGE service. The RIDGE service provides radar images that are the most accurate and overlay over the radar display for the National view. You must have a location selected and that location’s radar is used as an overlay on the nation-wide radar.

Subscription Placefile Access – Lightning Data

If you subscribe to AllisonHouse for GRLevelX Placefiles, including Lightning Data, then you can copy and paste your unique GRLevelX placefile link for USPLN Lightning data into Weather Plus for the United States to bring lightning data to your radar display. More placefile support is planned for future builds of Weather Plus for the United States, but we thought Lightning is the most requested data for being displayed on radar programs for the iPad.

If you are an AllisonHouse customer you will need to visit http://www.allisonhouse.com/customer and click “GibsonRidge” integration and copy and paste the USPLN Placefile link from “Quick Display” on AllisonHouse into Weather Plus to access lightning data.

To subscribe to AllisonHouse please visit http://www.allisonhouse.com.

Advisories Module Update and Bug Fix

Some locations are not tagged to the proper zones for the National Weather Service’s advisory web service. We have added a redundancy server to bring advisory access to Weather Plus for the United States 1.0.5 for locations that have this bug.

Updated: Storm Tracks – Track a storm in its path (Free Placefile)

Using a free placefile found on the Internet, Weather Plus for the United States 1.0.5 can now plot storm tracks for any United States radar site. If you are currently selected for a location such as Pittsburgh or Philadelphia Weather Plus knows to use the local radar to get storm tracks and plot them on a map using Google Maps and polygon technologies.

Screenshots of the next version:

More features are sure to come and they are offered as free upgrades to Weather Plus for United States users.

Hello Everyone,

I am proud to announce that I have got a great opportunity to work with the University of Puerto Rico and the iNoaaport project to bring satellite imagery over the Internet using push weather information. iNoaaport allows users to connect to free servers on the Internet and download push weather information around the clock to bring the latest weather information to users without the need for a 10-foot dish in most locations that will not allow it.

iNoaaport stuck out to me as a great project in need for new modules and more contributors to make sure this weather information stays free. There are too many universities and companies restricting the use of push weather data feeds from NOAAPORT. I am proud to work with the university to bring more data and information through iNoaaport and push data feeds.

iNoaaport demonstrates the power of the Internet and the need not to have a full-time running satellite setup that can grand total over $3,000 for a setup. Companies providing similar satellite feeds over smaller dish sizes (such as Ku-Band) are charging a yearly or even monthly fee to bring data from NOAAPORT to smaller setups.

iNoaaport elimates the needs for monthly charges, but it needs more contributors. teamWeather would like to hear from users interested in building their NOAAPORT setups into iNoaaport to create local mirrors around the world.

I am very happy to be working with a great crew over at iNoaaport and look forward to contributing a lot more information over the next few years. Keep up the good work everyone!

Thanks,

Christopher Zenzel

This week we discuss weather conditions for Philadelphia (chances of storms and high temperatures), a quick Android phone and Weather Station tip/trick, and we also talk about the dry grass that is poisoning most area yards. We also discuss some other topics including our iPhone Applications and how we plan to gain International Weather Data support in our software and web site to improve the quality of our data and applications. We also discuss how we plan to port some of our software to the Android in the possible future.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSlBtzyaLkY

Please note: On days we upload videos to YouTube it may take a few hours before HD video appears on both YouTube and the teamWeather web site. Please be patient. The HD quality more clearly shows charts, tables, and other features in the teamWeather Video Update.

Please pardon this week’s poor audio quality due to background noise from our neighbors who where purposely making noise during this video log by riding their mowers around their drainage hill and weed eating along their garden fence (and they weren’t even using their mower to mow!)