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over the past few years my use of weather apps + forecasting has really been improved by reading alongside them the local NWS office's "area forecast discussion
by rrix2 5y ago
over the past few years my use of weather apps + forecasting has really been improved by reading alongside them the local NWS office's "area forecast discussion"which is published multiple times a day by the station's meteorologists: https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/total_forecast/getprod.php?new&wfo=sew&sid=SEW&pil=AFD https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/total_forecast/getprod.php?new&wfo=...
It's really great to be able to contextualize the state of a Windy map, for example especially in Seattle where the weather patterns are tightly influenced by the Olympic mountains and other local conditions which these global maps usually fail to capture or express well.
Windy is impressive stuff but looking is half the battle with these maps, wind directions and "that weather blob is orange right now" only really go so far when your weather area's geography isn't simple; in fact, i think that the older static Weather Channel style maps which expressed the pressure gradients and fronts better and helped you build a model of what the weather is doing rather than which way the wind is blowing. (see https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/journeynorth.org/images/graphics/weather/2014/aborn0305.jpg https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/journeynorth.org/images/g... for an example)
- c54 5y agoHere's the same for the SF Bay area for those interested (took some poking around to find it, basically MTR is the monterey/bay area weather center so I tweaked the URL params to match) https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/total_forecast/getprod.php?new&wfo=mtr&sid=MTR&pil=AFD# https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/total_forecast/getprod.php?new&wfo=...
- rrix2 5y agoYup! And in general, you can click your location on https://www.weather.gov/ https://www.weather.gov/ 's image map, and it'll redirect you to the local office URL which is the same 3 letter code: https://www.weather.gov/mtr/ https://www.weather.gov/mtr/ and there is a link to the AFD in the "Text Product Selector" on the page!
- ctvo 5y agoWindy has all of that. A quick glance at the layer menu on the right of the map shows how to toggle that and more.
- rrix2 5y agoCan you explain how to find the AFDs in Windy's UI? I'm not able to find it in the layer menu...
- kposehn 5y agoAbsolutely right about the forecast discussion. I generally refer to that first (and even check it regularly throughout the day for updates). It is a far better tool for understanding the stage of the weather. The other favorite of mine is the HRRR high-res models. You can see a simulated radar map for the next 48 hours: https://mag.ncep.noaa.gov/model-guidance-model-parameter.php?group=Model%20Guidance&model=HRRR&area=US-SW&ps=area https://mag.ncep.noaa.gov/model-guidance-model-parameter.php...
- rateofclimb 5y agoGreat to see some love for Forecast Discussions! As a pilot, and overall outdoor enthusiast I've relied on Forecast Discussions for many years. If I may be so bold, my app Deep Weather for iOS is designed to be the most convenient and easy-to-read source for Forecast Discussions. It's free (with some more advanced/optional features requiring a subscription): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/deep-weather/id528748182 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/deep-weather/id528748182
- baxtr 5y agoNot available in Europe! Too bad
- rateofclimb 5y agoYes I'm sorry, Area Forecast Discussions are a product of NOAA/National Weather Service in the United States and its territories. They do cover a lot of ground from Guam to Puerto Rico, the continental US and Alaska, but not Europe.
- benhurmarcel 5y agoThat’s not really a reason to restrict its installation to users that have a US iCloud account only. People travel, move, or have interests in other areas than their home country.
- kortilla 5y ago“Straight from the experts at NOAA”... but through a platform/app not affiliated with them in any way. I find apps that use that kind of marketing to make it sound like they are associated with the big agency they yank the data from to be really sleazy.
- amrangaye 5y agoI don’t see the problem - I didn’t read it as “we have NOAA experts working for us” but as “we are sharing data from the experts at…”. I think sleazy is… unkind - especially reaching that conclusion from just one line in a description.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]