The purpose of an animation is to to judge the exact time of arrival of the rain, based on proper animation length and spacing between frames. The new weather.gov radar does not understand radar animation, zoom, necessary resolution modulation depending on the zoom levels.
A good rule of thumb is 1 hour of animation per 45 mile radar radius. A 45 mile radius would likely be fine with a frame per every 5 minutes and a 1 hour duration, with street block wide resolution and a good street map underlay.... On the contrary, a 600 mile wide radar is best with lower resolution, since I do not want to waste data on weather 5 states away. Also a 600 mile radar should be 12 hours of animation, and the frame lapse should be a half hour, or even 1 hour, to best allow me to measure the screen and see the exact eta. .. A 220 mile radius, might need a higher resolution, but not granular, and 5 hours of animation, stepped at 20 minutes per frame.
Now, because convection is like watching a ghost, as it can appear or disappear, this is why we need maps. Psi, total index, cape, humidity, etc.
I live and die by the accuracy of a weather forecast. I get up consult 13 different ones and get 11 answers which differ enough to boink my day planning. This is why I consult my favorite 40, 60 to 120 weather images and products. Since the invention of the Hrrr, accuracy, in my book, has lowered because no one is using their skills to override erroneous data and modeling.
Currently, my web site and cache is really missing intelligent animations. Remember:1 hour per 45 miles. 3 zoom levels 600 miles radius, 220 mile radius, and 40 to 60 miles. With respective increasing resolution and frame chop.
Data is everything. I travel all over the corner of my state, and I can tell you that cell speed is not always good. I carry a dual sim att and t-mobile phone. T-mobile speed is the worst unless you are close to a tower. I also carry a spare sprint phone with 1 gig of data per month. And one Verizon phone which charges me an arm and a leg per 100 megabytes. ... The weather dot gov new radar loads my 7 states away from my location and shoves high resolution 50 minute loop down my narrow cell pipes. Then when I drag the radar to my county and zoom, it is not quite up to the resolution of what I am used to. The 50 minutes of animation is not enough to tell anything about rain systems. Not the organization, not the speed, or eta. Useless.
I had to leave the job several times in the last few weeks, due to false rain predictions. And twice, I had rain wash off the paint, when no rain predicted.... I am using AccuWeather, dupage, and PSU, as well as the weather.com, among others. I am not a happy camper.
The Javascript must end too. I just need to either hotlink a a gif to my home screen of my phone, else embed it along side 40 other weather products that I am interested in. I have no interest in commercial weather pages. Their model is to give you as little as possible information per page and per per advertisement. Click bait.
