Topic: WSV3 - The next generation in PC weather software

[Jáchym]

It is like that for most of the Europe, in fact if you compare the amount of data provided by the official meteorological institutions, the US and Canada are great, whereas in Europe you will usually struggle to find any usable data. And I know this from my own country, here we give absolute minimum of information, the NWS where I work has very outdated looking website, with very disorganized content and absolutely no API for example, no RSS feeds or anything in machine-readable format.

The only countries that are slightly better are the U.K. and the Scandinavian countries.

[erikmm]

The only countries that are slightly better are the U.K. and the Scandinavian countries.

Sweden and Norway, yes - Denmark...pheeeew, no

[ocala]

It is like that for most of the Europe, in fact if you compare the amount of data provided by the official meteorological institutions, the US and Canada are great, whereas in Europe you will usually struggle to find any usable data. And I know this from my own country, here we give absolute minimum of information, the NWS where I work has very outdated looking website, with very disorganized content and absolutely no API for example, no RSS feeds or anything in machine-readable format.

The only countries that are slightly better are the U.K. and the Scandinavian countries.

Back when I got my first computer, early/mid 90's, it was like that in the US. Wasn't much available back then. I think just 3 websites had a contract with the government to distribute radar data.
Hopefully that will change for you guys over there as I'm sure your tax dollars pay for it.
You should be entitled to view it.

[Jáchym]

The problem is that most data is usually copyrighted, cannot be used at all, and if, then HTML scraping is usually the only way, which is extremely slow and whenever they change a single thing in the HTML, the script fails.

Warnings, radar, forecasts..... in CZ, my institution has absolutely nothing, not a single page in machine-readable format and very user-unfriendly site

[erikmm]

I'm sure your tax dollars pay for it.

Denmark = Highest tax in the world, around 42% of your salvary, and then comes all other taxes...

[erikmm]

The problem is that most data is usually copyrighted, cannot be used at all, and if, then HTML scraping is usually the only way, which is extremely slow and whenever they change a single thing in the HTML, the script fails.

Warnings, radar, forecasts..... in CZ, my institution has absolutely nothing, not a single page in machine-readable format and very user-unfriendly site

They have very good data in DK, but the cost, pheeeew, they know what they want

[Jáchym]

I'm sure your tax dollars pay for it.

Denmark = Highest tax in the world, around 42% of your salvary, and then comes all other taxes...

OT: Yes, but.... it is still better to pay eg 42% of 1000 than like here, 22% of say 200.... your minimum wage is twice as much as our average, which is not even average, one should look at the median, me, with a Masters degree, but just 2 yrs of work experience, I have a very close to our minimum wage, which is like 8 times less, despite the fact that believe it or not, many things here are even more expensive. Just last week there there was an article in the main newspaper, they went and bought the exact same food procuts and cosmetics in the same shops in Germany and in the Czech Republic. The total from the Czech shops was 40% higher, almost half more, and the Czech average salary is 4 times lower than that in Germany.

Edit:

Just checked:

Avg monthly salary:

DK - 3100 E
DE - 2300 E
CZ - 720 E

Dont know about Denmark, but eg. food and hygiene products (so the most basic things you have to buy no matter what) are more expensive here than in Germany.

[Jáchym]

Anyway, back to the topic of this post! I just wanted to put things into context with regards to your taxes I would rather pay 42% of your income to still have three times as much compared to what I have

[erikmm]

Anyway, back to the topic of this post! I just wanted to put things into context with regards to your taxes I would rather pay 42% of your income to still have three times as much compared to what I have

[Farmtalk]

The software is great in my opinion, but I still am not a big fan of the comparison between it and GREarth. I think each have their pros and cons.

For GREarth, from my experience (had it for 3 years), it is low on RAM, loads easily, has a good bit of easy to customize model data, mesoanalysis parameters are nice. And though there is no local site by site radar, the national radar looks good.

WSV3 is tailored in my opinion towards radar data. Don't get me wrong, I'm not entirely sure how Paul is getting that level 2 data but it is CRISP. Very beautiful to look at. I do think the program is a bit heavy on computer usage. I've got a 6gb laptop and even it gets hot after a few minutes of using the program, and that's after I turned the background imagery off.

Both are great products. I don't think you get a product from WSV3 that completely replaces GREarth, but there are some fantastic products in it that make it nonetheless a great product too. 

[skysummit]

The software is great in my opinion, but I still am not a big fan of the comparison between it and GREarth. I think each have their pros and cons.

For GREarth, from my experience (had it for 3 years), it is low on RAM, loads easily, has a good bit of easy to customize model data, mesoanalysis parameters are nice. And though there is no local site by site radar, the national radar looks good.

WSV3 is tailored in my opinion towards radar data. Don't get me wrong, I'm not entirely sure how Paul is getting that level 2 data but it is CRISP. Very beautiful to look at. I do think the program is a bit heavy on computer usage. I've got a 6gb laptop and even it gets hot after a few minutes of using the program, and that's after I turned the background imagery off.

Both are great products. I don't think you get a product from WSV3 that completely replaces GREarth, but there are some fantastic products in it that make it nonetheless a great product too. 

I agree on all accounts.  Matter of fact, I re-subscribed to my GRE account a few days ago just to do some comparisons to WSV3.  As much as I like WSV3 because of its visual aspects, you can't beat the stability of GRE.  Very fast, quick loading products.  I own GR3 as well, and have had it since before it was available to the public.  I just noticed this last night, but if you right click on a location in GRE, it'll give the option of going "local" with GR3.  Pretty neat little feature. It may have been there for a while, but I've just noticed it.

The biggest thing that bugs me right now is having to close and re-open WSV3 when metars stop reporting or cities disappear, etc.  Not sure if they're bugs in the program or issues on Paul's server.  Another thing is the lack of tropical sectors satellite....there is none.  AND, what bugged me during the winter is the p-type radar was very inaccurate in comparison to GRE, but that's all in the algorithms so maybe Paul will get it fixed by winter if he hasn't done so yet.

I'm sort of forced to use WSV3 right now because of my 1 year subscription, but I do believe I'm going to stick with GRE and choose it overall in the long run.

BTW Farmtalk, I'm DW2721 on WxSpots   Glad to see you on there.

[fox4beta]

Aha, ok I see, so it is basically a customized radar image, which includes the radar image that is available from other free sources as well, but in addition adds your customized overlays. makes sense.

Here are a few screenshots of WSV3 right now.  It also has forecasting tools, winter tools, winter precipitation type radar, fire outlooks, marine data, tropical data, recon, GFS, NAM and HRRR models, mesoanalysis data.  It really does have a lot to offer.

Example...here's what I'm looking at right now in the northern U.S., Michigan to be exact.





Some other examples...Decent graphics as well:

how does thta high of resolution go that far out on your level 2 radar

[Farmtalk]

What do you mean? Could you explain what you're asking a little more? 

[skysummit]

Aha, ok I see, so it is basically a customized radar image, which includes the radar image that is available from other free sources as well, but in addition adds your customized overlays. makes sense.

Here are a few screenshots of WSV3 right now.  It also has forecasting tools, winter tools, winter precipitation type radar, fire outlooks, marine data, tropical data, recon, GFS, NAM and HRRR models, mesoanalysis data.  It really does have a lot to offer.

Example...here's what I'm looking at right now in the northern U.S., Michigan to be exact.

how does thta high of resolution go that far out on your level 2 radar

???  Not sure what you're referring to.  It's possibly the way my color table makes it look?