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Very nice interface! I just have to comment since I've been building for a fee weather applications in my spare time for a little while. I know what a mess it c

by igrekel 16y ago

Very nice interface! I just have to comment since I've been building for a fee weather applications in my spare time for a little while. I know what a mess it can become, especially since you rely on different sources. I really like how you show the mean and distribution in the background. I am surprised by the absence of precipitation accumulation, especially since that is often a valuable information for many people who look at long time weather. Also I don't think the horizontal marker adds information since you show the value for each curve at the cursor, I feel it just clutters the interface. The meaning of the icons is not always obvious, I am unsure how to interpret two snowflakes out of three or two raindrops out of four etc. It doesn't seem to be tied to the PoP. The intensity maybe?

jacobn 16y ago
Thanks! We're working on precipitation accumulation - there are some data fidelity problems that we're trying to solve, then we'll get that in. The horizontal marker is intended for comparing across the series - i.e. does this peak extend further up than this other peak over there. There's a lot of action going on around the mouse cursor, we'll see if we can pare that down without losing the key information. Icons: 1 out of 2 snowflakes etc is the expected intensity of the precipitation (i.e. light snow, heavy snow, etc). The probability is reported just next to the intensity in the icon series if you're at a zoom level where the labels fit. We don't have a legend for the icons yet, need to add that.
- igrekel 16y ago
  What do you mean by data fidelity, you mean about how to represent the data so that it is comparable? I can imagine it is a problem especially since your scale can change. I know I am not showing accumulations graphically for a number of reasons myself. For a while I was showing snow accumulation on a graph where it would literally accumulate. Or something about your data sources? I work with data from Environment Canada and the only annoying thing with the data was making meaningful unit conversions when the nature of the accumulation is snow.
  - jrd79 16y ago
    Hi, by "data fidelity" we mean that there are a lot of errors and irregularities in the liquid-equivalent precipitation measurements reported by the stations. Some stations don't report it at all, or not reliably, and some report it but with internal inconsistencies. For example, stations may report in 1-hour, 6-hour, or 12-hour intervals, but they frequently report 1-hour measurements that don't even come close to adding up to the 6-hour measurements. We just want to make sure we take some time to understand these issues with the data feeds before we start publishing them. The snow depth feed is also a really cool graph. We have it more or less ready, but it is perhaps the least reliable measurement. For example, during that recent snow storm in Chicago it reported some pretty crazy big snow depth numbers for a couple reports and then without correcting the old reports just dropped the snow depth by more than a meter in the next report. This is fine if you have a human reading the report, but it makes the graph look really weird.

by igrekel 16y ago

jacobn 16y ago

Thanks! We're working on precipitation accumulation - there are some data fidelity problems that we're trying to solve, then we'll get that in. The horizontal marker is intended for comparing across the series - i.e. does this peak extend further up than this other peak over there. There's a lot of action going on around the mouse cursor, we'll see if we can pare that down without losing the key information. Icons: 1 out of 2 snowflakes etc is the expected intensity of the precipitation (i.e. light snow, heavy snow, etc). The probability is reported just next to the intensity in the icon series if you're at a zoom level where the labels fit. We don't have a legend for the icons yet, need to add that.

igrekel 16y ago
What do you mean by data fidelity, you mean about how to represent the data so that it is comparable? I can imagine it is a problem especially since your scale can change. I know I am not showing accumulations graphically for a number of reasons myself. For a while I was showing snow accumulation on a graph where it would literally accumulate. Or something about your data sources? I work with data from Environment Canada and the only annoying thing with the data was making meaningful unit conversions when the nature of the accumulation is snow.
- jrd79 16y ago
  Hi, by "data fidelity" we mean that there are a lot of errors and irregularities in the liquid-equivalent precipitation measurements reported by the stations. Some stations don't report it at all, or not reliably, and some report it but with internal inconsistencies. For example, stations may report in 1-hour, 6-hour, or 12-hour intervals, but they frequently report 1-hour measurements that don't even come close to adding up to the 6-hour measurements. We just want to make sure we take some time to understand these issues with the data feeds before we start publishing them. The snow depth feed is also a really cool graph. We have it more or less ready, but it is perhaps the least reliable measurement. For example, during that recent snow storm in Chicago it reported some pretty crazy big snow depth numbers for a couple reports and then without correcting the old reports just dropped the snow depth by more than a meter in the next report. This is fine if you have a human reading the report, but it makes the graph look really weird.