Author Topic: WU radar alternative?  (Read 2094 times)

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Offline ALITTLEweird1

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WU radar alternative?
« on: November 26, 2017, 12:23:55 PM »
It doesn't seem WU is in any hurry to fix their radar issues.  Does anyone have an alternative for a decent radar to use on our websites?

Thanks
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Offline McLouthWX

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Re: WU radar alternative?
« Reply #1 on: November 26, 2017, 01:29:31 PM »
If you aren't confused, then you weren't paying attention.

Offline SLOweather

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Re: WU radar alternative?
« Reply #2 on: November 26, 2017, 03:39:48 PM »
I have been thinking about trying my hand at a NOAA RIDGE RADAR script, based on info at:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/doppler/ridge_download.html

Then I thought to google ridge radar php script, and got looped back to, where else.. WxForum... (that happens to me a lot)

NWS Ridge Radar script

OTOH, we have rain supposedly on the way, and my StrikeStar loop is fully framed for the first time in weeks. Still, I'm gonna check out John's script.

Offline SLOweather

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Re: WU radar alternative?
« Reply #3 on: November 26, 2017, 06:04:46 PM »
I went looking around at the RIDGE site and found the national mosaic:

https://radar.weather.gov/Conus/full.php

The page programming won't let you right click and save the image location, so I looked at the source. The image is:

https://radar.weather.gov/Conus/RadarImg/latest.gif

It's big, 3400x1600...

And a cropped area from that of my area:



I might try editing one of my scripts to crop the image every 10 minutes and make a 90 minute animated GIF out of it.

Offline ALITTLEweird1

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Re: WU radar alternative?
« Reply #4 on: November 26, 2017, 06:22:13 PM »
That could work if a script could automatically could crop it, and then a easy way to choose locations.
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Offline SlowModem

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Re: WU radar alternative?
« Reply #5 on: November 27, 2017, 01:27:57 AM »
Greg Whitehead
Ten Mile, TN USA

Offline SLOweather

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Re: WU radar alternative?
« Reply #6 on: November 27, 2017, 09:16:04 AM »
That could work if a script could automatically could crop it, and then a easy way to choose locations.

The cropping shouldn't be a problem. My existing animated radar script already crops the radar out of the  complete image I get from Strikestar/WU and then rearranges the overlays.

It starts with this:



Then it turns the last 10 images into an animated gif.



Then it crops just the radar image out for the base image, cuts out and overlays the color legend and time stamp, and adds the SLOweather/StrikeStar branding.



As far as an easy way to choose locations, I dunno. Since this is modified once for a given location, I think the easiest for me as a programmer would be to fix the image size and then the end user would inspect the big gif and figure out the x-y location of either the desired top left corner, or maybe the center of the image and edit that into the script.

« Last Edit: November 27, 2017, 09:35:58 AM by SLOweather »

Offline SLOweather

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Re: WU radar alternative?
« Reply #7 on: November 27, 2017, 09:33:51 AM »
Would this be any help to you?

https://radar.weather.gov/lite/N0R/VBX_loop.gif

I looked at that, and considered using it. The thing is, that's just the Vandenberg radar, which misses weather outside its range (for instance, yesterday, up around Monterey Bay).  Before I found the big gif, I was thinking about building a RIDGE script to make the individual radar graphics and then assemble them into my own mosaic. Here's a crude cut-and-paste collage demo of VBX and Monterey I just knocked out in Paint Shop Pro.




Offline mkutche

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Offline saratogaWX

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Re: WU radar alternative?
« Reply #9 on: December 01, 2017, 07:22:26 PM »
I'd suggest the HAniS script as a suitable replacement.
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