roncli.com blog: More NWS stuff

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While this is not related at all to the project I was working on the other day, I thought I'd present this interesting test I've been doing.

Today I worked on parsing WSR-88D data. In short, it's data available for free on the NWS site that, when decoded, allows you to display radar images. I gotta say, this is pretty simple work when you know what you're doing. Check out this current image of Houston area radar.

Although there are no borders, the ground clutter makes it easy to see Galveston and the bay. The northern end of the image reaches Dallas, while the western end extends beyond San Antonio and Austin.

It should only be a matter of putting the pieces together in order to get not only radar that's more pretty, but something that'll pave the way into locally cached radar loops for insane time ranges that you just can't get on other sites, free or pay.

The ultimate goal, of course, would be to import these images into Google Earth. They do have one radar service I saw, but it wasn't very good because it had the company's logo written all over the freakin' map.

In any case, between this and the other NWS stuff I've worked on earlier this year, I almost have enough to put together for a desktop weather app. Might be interesting to see how far I can go with this.

Labels: Coding, NWS, Screenshot

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