We are now entering the part of the year where we look forward to happy summer days, vacations, outdoor sports, and other activities. This is also the time of the year when severe storms, tropical weather, and hurricanes take up much of our weather interests.
There are thousands of internet sites with weather information, but a few are standouts capable of providing detailed weather information that may best meet our personal needs and interests.
The National Weather Service at www.weather.gov is the granddaddy of weather pages, with possibly more information and resources available through its links than any other weather site. At the center of the page is an interactive county by county national map indicating any current special weather warnings. Clicking on a spot on the map will open that local weather site with the detailed information. Tabs on the top edge of the primary map provide for an additional selection of interactive information, including graphical forecasts; a national map showing fronts, storms, and other information; a national radar summary; river information including flooding potential; air quality; and a color enhanced, infrared, national satellite map. All of the maps presented are interactive in that by simply moving the cursor over a location, and clicking, detailed information for that location will open. All of this information is frequently updated, with some of the radar information updated as frequently as every five minutes, and the satellite maps updated as frequently as every 15 minutes. Since the internet has become a visual medium, most of the maps and charts offer a graphical loop, which animates the images on the screen.
On the top-left corner of the weather.gov website is a “Local Forecast by City, St” where detailed highly localized conditions and forecasts will be presented by entering a city and state. Current conditions, a five day graphical forecast, a detailed seven day forecast, radar images, satellite images, additional links, and any hazardous weather conditions are clearly presented on these localized “point forecast” pages.
Now that we are in the Atlantic hurricane season, it would be a good opportunity to review what information is available that we may need, before we may need it. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has its own website at www.nhc.noaa.gov. Whenever a storm may be in formation or active, detailed information on tropical storms is available. The NHC creates maps showing the location, strength, projected paths, and warnings about any potential tropical storms or hurricanes. For those who desire immediate information and updates of tropical information, the NHC makes available instant free alerts via email and RSS feed. To receive the tropical alerts via email, click on the “Email Advisories” on the left side of the main NHC webpage. These spam-free alerts will be issued as needed, and are sent immediately to subscribers. For those using internet RSS readers, RSS complaint news pages such as “My Yahoo”, or an RSS capable web browser such as Firefox, tropical alerts can be immediately received using that service by clicking on the “RSS Feeds XML” and configuring the reader for the NHC RSS service.
There are other near-instant methods of getting detailed and customized local weather alerts and other critical safety related information, sent directly via email, pager, Blackberry, or cell phone. One free and very popular such service is the Emergency Email & Wireless Network at www.emergencyemail.org. In addition to weather alerts, information of homeland security, amber alerts, and other information is available. I personally chose to receive some critical alerts (homeland security alerts) as a text message on my cell phone, and other alerts via email.
A new competitive service “SCAN” was recently announced at www.scanusa.com, which is also free, and sponsored by SBC. SCAN is an acronym for “Safe Community Alert Network”. SCAN will send zip code based alerts directly to computers via email, or wireless devices such as cell phones and PDAs. In addition to weather alerts, the SCAN service will also provide localized information on crime, sexual predators, cyber attacks, fire advisories, health emergencies, and other similar public safety information.
When the internet was in its infancy in March, 1994, I attempted to fill a local need by creating a non-commercial weather page, currently at www.beaumontweather.com. Using data and feeds from a variety of public and private sources, I created a graphically based dynamic website with extremely comprehensive and constantly updated weather information. Named the “Golden Triangle Weather Page”, this site may be the longest continuously running non-commercial local website in this area. When tropical weather threatens, I use a different template that I created to place detailed tropical information near the top of the page. When tropical weather threatens, information is presented from a variety of services, including the NHC, the Tropical Prediction Center at the University of Hawaii, and the U. S. Navy. Feeds are included when available that provide the latest information, alerts, and predictions from the NHC, as well as current satellite and radar images of approaching tropical storms. Since all of the feeds are direct from their respective sources, much of the information is available on my site before it is on the local media! During the peak of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season, as many as 60,000 users a day were utilizing my weather page. The dual counters displayed indicate that about 1.4 million users have visited my page.
Weather is something that impacts us all in a variety of ways, so it is often necessary for us to be kept informed about it, and warned as necessary.
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