Looks like a serious thunderstorm is sweeping up Long Island on its way to Cape Cod this Sunday afternoon. So, rather than risk life and limb in a sailboat, I’ve hunkered down with the laptop and am watching the radar show a big mass of red moving up the coast.
I use the National Weather Service. In days gone by I used to actually pay Accuweather for “premium” weather until I figured out they get most of their data from the NWS. I need to get a book as I have no idea what “base reflectivity” means, nor the weird quadrangles that get arbitrarily placed on the storm track. Figuring out amateur metereology has long been one of those wish lists along with figuring the names of the constellations.
Looks like I have another hour to go before I need to make sure the car windows are rolled up and the porch windows are closed.
tether your elephants, Sahib! As someone who’s bunkered up in front of approaching wildlands fires, i live for NWS data.
Jim
We had to drive from O-ville back to the ‘burbs through the tail end of that mess and it was no fun!
The boxes are watches or warnings (probably severe thunderstorm warnings in this case). If you load one of the individual radar images (as opposed to the composite), you should see the secret decoder key.
NWS on radar terminology: http://weather.noaa.gov/radar/radinfo/radinfo.html
If you really want to have fun with weather geekery, try decoding METARs and TAFs. Apparently, the federal government is still saving money on its teletype budget by reducing everything to a two-letter code.