I’m often amazed at the reach this blog has been getting worldwide. Last month, I found it hitting almost a quarter million visits. This month it is on track to exceed 300,000. And you never know who will drop by. For example MIT’s Richard Lindzen dropped by a few days ago and offered some insight and a graph.
Along those lines I’ve recently been given an offer of a sit down visit with one of the principal organizations and investigators of climate science today. I won’t say who just yet, (except to say it is not Al Gore) but I can say that the offer is genuine and exciting.
It also comes with a price tag, since I have to fund the travel, hotel, etc. myself.
When I first set out to do the surfacestations.org project, I did so with no expectation of funding. I rather like it that way because I think that when you are handed a wad of cash with the expectation of producing a result in exchange, sometimes the pressure of doing so can be a detriment to true curiosity and discovery. I once worked in a University environment, and I saw the pressure to produce.
But this visit I’ve been offered is going to take a bit of cash to do, and rather than beg supporters I have what I hope will be a better idea. I don’t like begging, but I do like providing useful things for meteorology.
So here’s my pitch. I have a weather radar program for the USA NEXRAD network, and a darn good one at that. It’s called StormPredator. Knowing that I have many people that frequent this blog who enjoy meteorology and severe weather tracking, I’m hoping those of you that like the work that I do will consider buying it to help fund my trip. You get something, I get something, we both win. Plus I’ll have one heck of a blog report when I get back from this meeting.
My idea for Stormpredator came from my working with old WSR-3, WSR-57, and WSR-74 weather radars with round PPI scopes. I wanted to create a weather radar program that anyone could use, not just a “met head”. I wanted a weather program that would be useful, educational, and fun at the same time.
It looks like this:
Besides round PPI mode, it also can be setup in a rectangular presentation. It has 3D topography for the entire USA, and can track and animate storms, do popup and email alerts, provide ETA estimates, forecasts, satellite imagery, and even send pictures to your website or cell phone. It’s loaded.
It is used by storm trackers, 911 centers, dispatch centers, TV stations, radio stations, schools, amateur radio operators, and just regular folks that like to track storms.
It has a boatload of features. Check them out here.
There is no subscription fee for the radar or other weather data, and the program will operate using any type of Internet connection. It is also inexpensive for what it does, at $39.99. (or $10 more for a CD ROM version).
If watching the weather interests you, I hope you’ll consider buying a copy to help me fund my trip. Thank you for your consideration.
If you don’t live in the USA, and can’t use the program above for that or any other reason, but would like to help out, I have provided a donation page via PayPal on the surfacestations.org website.
Won’t go to Sam’s and WalMart today. How many gadgets do a need to buy to get a muzzle on “TCO”?
REPLY: TCO has his points, even though he sometimes gets a bit too snarky. So I’d say no amount of gadgetry will help at the moment, but thanks for the offer.
TCO’s just jealous he hasn’t been invited.
I had to set up a PayPal account since I don’t shop on-line much, and I’ve never donated to anyone before, but you’re worth it, Anthony. Many thanks for an informative and entertaining blog.
REPLY: Wow, thanks Stan. I appreciate the trouble you went to.
“All engines back emergency”
There may be a valuable metaphor there.
A very long time ago I was a Seaman aboard a Heavy Cruiser in the US Navy, we were on a post-yard shakedown cruise in the Caribbean on a speed run.
The ship engine-order telegraph says “All Engines Ahead Flank”, but the rev-order is for the maximum the ship an do.
Sort of like life as we like to live it.
A destroyer cuts across our bow on a maneuver that looks a little startling but a little basic seamanship and experience says is not really a big deal.
But it panics the OOD and he orders “All Engines Back Emergency” — sort of like Gore and his acolytes want us to do.
If you have never seen a large ship running at flank speed, you have no conception of the size of the rooster-tail thrown up under those conditions (nor of how much water is in it). But if your quarters are under the fantail, and the hatch-covers are all open for the warm, fresh Caribbean air, and something like that happens, you get an appreciation for just how much damage an ill-conceived action can cause.
I left out a part of the word picture that a non-boater will need.
The action of the propellers (“screws” to a sailor) and the motion of the ship through the water cause a mountain of water (the “rooster tail” to form behind and follow the ship. This actuallly leaves a low place in the water between the stern and the mountain.
When suddenly reverse the screws (the only “brakes” a ship has), the tendency is for the ship to back (relatively speaking) down into the hole under the rooster-tail.
More pesos headed your way from the bottom of the world. And, of course, keep it a’comin’, and illegitimi non carborundum…..
REPLY: Thanks Wayne, we appreciate the NZ connection here.
small tip in the jar from the Ray family.
REPLY: Robert, thanks so much! Your assistance is appreciated.
Anthony,
Downloaded the software today. Bought a couple of licenses.
There is a + at Pemberton, BC (150 Mi from Seattle) and my small town is in the map area. What does the + mean? Can’t seem to find any comment on the + sign in the help. The weather here is clear right now but the beam sweeps well within the area I need.
Perhaps Canadians near enough to the boarder can get some useful information from this program.
REPLY: It is simply the marker for the town location. You can edit the base map by locating it in the data folder if you have a paint program or you can apply a custome marker over the top of it if you wish. Thanks for support!
I’ve very happily purchased the software. Glad to help support the good work done here and at surfacestations. Thanks for doing it.
Anthony
Keep up the good work.
It will take a number of years for the AGW scam to be scotched. A long road lies ahead – slings and arrows etc.
I don’t live in the USA so I’ve made a PayPal donation equivalent to the cost of the CD version and circulated my colleagues with the quote of the day – (see Jim B 22:41 15/03/08).
Kind regards
REPLY: Thanks so much Atholl, your support is greatly appreciated.
Anthony, just dropped a contribution via paypal. Keep up the great work. I hope to pull myself away from business this summer to add some surveys in the southeast. I continue to be impressed by your tenacity. It reminds me of a quote from Calvin Coolidge, that was shared with me by my PhD boss at GE R&D Center 25 years ago-
“Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
REPLY: Thanks Paminator, that’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me. I appreciate it.
Blah, blah, blah, linux user, blah, blah, blah TCO, blah, blah, donated a schilling or two…
PS. I couldn’t donate much as I’m living almost solely on student loans at the moment, but I wanted to help you with your endeavor. Have a good trip.
PPS. I would buy the software, it looks really really cool. But, alas, I live in the San Joaquin Valley and, well, there really isn’t much weather here to speak of most of the year, and $40 to track the two or three storms we do get…
PPPS. Oh, and unlike TCO, I have great respect for the science of meteorology.
REPLY: Thanks Mike, I apreciate the current help and the surveys you’ve done. BTW many of those Linux users helped out. I have great respect for the Linux OS, (except for the GREP command, which I loathe). 😉
Aww, now you’ve done it. grep is my mostest favorite command in all of computerdom and one of the things I miss most.
Finally got around to shifting some of my assets offshore from Australia under the guise of a donation. 🙂 A good investment, nonetheless.
Larry Sheldon: Why would you miss grep? It’s still around. Or have you run off to have an affair with awk?
REPLY: Thanks Bernd, much appreciated.
Surveying an actual weather station and comparing it to other sources
of data in the area strikes me as an great science fair project.
better than a vinager and baking soda volcano
Naw, nor have I been over attentive to sed.
The problem is that I have been confined to a MSDOS, etc world for several years.
I have an old NT server downstairs that now has no function since the University fired me–I intend to put a real OS on it, but I have not yet.
RELPLY: Try Ubuntu for that old server box, it is really slick. If you don’t want slick, then I recommend “Slack” as in Slackware distro.
Anthony, I’m an old (really old) retired military weatherman who is appalled at the poor conditions and siting of so many of the places that your project has surveyed. Although I won’t go in to a rant about what appears to be a near total lack of management and quality control by taxpayer funded agencies, I am of the firm opinion that collecting second (third? fourth?) class observations and then running algorithms against this data (trash?) in order to predict even a short term future temperature is sheer folly.
I remember an old Oklahoma gal who once told me, “If you put trash on a pedestal, it is still trash,” which sort of expresses my thoughts a bit more colorfully. And as a computer programmer who began coding on weather computers in 1966, I also am a firm believer of “Garbage in, garbage out.”
I spent lots of time collecting and distributing world-wide observations and have a reasonably good memory of how sparse reports are from many areas of the globe. And I remember that we had to do a lot of massaging to make them useful.
ENOUGH rant!!
I’ve contributed to your trip because I believe you furnish a lot of critical information to the problem, information that is not generally available on a piece of paper and therefore unknown to most academics. You have only scratched the surface regarding data quality.
Keep up the good work, and have a good trip.
REPLY: Hi Rod, thanks so much. The entire thing is a huge puzzle for sure.
Lol, good one. Though some people call it Art…
That’s not true. I pay to have my site hosted and for bandwidth. They may not be as much as what you pay, but it is out of my pocket.
REPLY: I thought your blog was wordpress like this one. Did you opt for a third party host then rather than the free service?
Yes, it’s a third party host. Am I silly for doing that? Probably, but I like the feeling that I’m in total control of my site.
Nothing wrong with that, Atmoz. It’s the reason I pay $170 a month for a dedicated server.
green flare
I ordered two licenses for the download version. I didn’t know that the packaged version had better backgrounds. I plan to have a version at home and one on my “Mobile Spotting” laptop. How much clearer are the images in the boxed version? The program as advertised and will be a great adjunct when I go out chasing oops I mean “Mobile Spotting”.
I also may be looking for a new Weather Station for my house. My old one was pretty beat up in Kansas when I lived there, and a new one is probably in order. Maybe I can use the stimulus check for something useful? I am still debating the wired / wireless route. My current one is wired, and I am not sure that going wireless would be of any help especially if it reduces the update frequency. it si difficult to get detailed specifications on many of the systems online.
I enjoy your site and when I visit Kansas next I will try to survey some sites for your study.
Thanks for your hard work.
[…] is something that you, my faithful readers have made possible through generous donations when I asked for some help a few weeks ago. I thank you, each and every one, who donated to make this trip […]