The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced this week that it has finally completed a nine-year, $180 million project aimed at installing new supercomputers to aid in more accurately predicting weather. The primary IBM supercomputer is now called Stratus. Its backup is dubbed Cirrus.
The new supercomputers, based on IBM Power 575 Systems, are capable of making 69.7 trillion calculations per second. According to NOAA, the faster the calculation speeds, the greater the chances that meteorologists can rapidly update severe weather forecasts as dangerous weather affects local communities. Billions of bytes are entered into the supercomputers each day to help predict the weather more accurately.
Just how important NOAA's new supercomputers are to our understanding and prediction of weather is easily understated.
Right now, Stratus contains about 20 weather models that predict worldwide weather accurately for about five days. A few decades ago, weather models could forecast weather accurately up to only about two days.
Those 20 weather models rarely change. They analyze conditions such as temperature, humidity, and precipitation to give organizations ranging from the National Weather Service to local meteorologists data on which they can base forecasts.
According to Ben Kyger, director of central operations for the National Center of Environmental Prediction, a division of NOAA, "We analyze weather conditions on grids we lay over maps of the world. In order for meteorologists to accurately predict a hurricane's path, for example, NOAA needs to pinpoint weather conditions in 1-kilometer grids of distance." Right now, those spans "are not even close to that."
How does it work?
In order to improve forecasting, a lot of work needs to be done. Right now, scientists from around the world are analyzing Stratus' weather models to find ways to improve them. When they think that they've come up with an improvement, NOAA analyzes the new models.
If it likes what it sees, NOAA takes it open source. It installs the new model on the Cirrus supercomputer to run in parallel with the approved model on Stratus. Scientists, weather experts, and even you and I can view the new model and inspect it for errors. Errors found are removed or tweaked. If no errors can be found, and the new data enhances weather forecasting, it will be put into operation and replace the existing model that it improved upon.
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The Livestrong skin changes the look of Firefox.
(Credit: Mozilla)Mozilla announced a variety of new skins for its Firefox Web browser Tuesday. Many of the skins are from well-known brands and fashion designers. According to the company, All American Rejects-, Lady Gaga-, and No Doubt-themed music skins are currently available. Those looking for fashion designs can have a BCBG Max Azria skin, while those who want to support Lance Armstrong and the fight against cancer can download the Livestrong skin. Many more free skins are available on Mozilla's new "Personas" page.
The Weather Channel has launched the second version of its iPhone app, the company announced Tuesday. The new version is ad-supported. Users who are interested in the advertisements can click on them and check out the advertiser's page without closing the app. More importantly, the new app now features in-motion weather maps, metro traffic cameras, a snapshot of weather conditions, and animation radar. The free app is available now in the Apple App Store.
Music search engine SeeqPod filed a petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court Monday. According to the court filing, SeeqPod decided to file for protection after responding to pressure from the music industry, which has slapped the service with billions of dollars in lawsuits that it might not survive. SeeqPod has not disclosed any information about the filing.
Mobile advertising firm AdMob has launched the iPhone Download Exchange program, which will allow developers to increase their own iPhone app downloads by advertising the app in other programs. AdMob will be inking deals with developers who want to participate in the network. All the apps that are included in the deals will feature ads advertising other apps that are also in the network. According to the company, AdMob already has over 1,000 iPhone applications in the Download Exchange and, with the wider release, it expects more companies to sign up soon.
An artist named Helmut Smits has decided that working with paint isn't enough, so instead he is showing his art to people on Google Earth. Dubbed "Dead Pixel in Google Earth," Smits burned a 32x32-inch piece of grass in a field in the Netherlands. According to the artist, that patch of burned grass represents 1 pixel in Google Earth at a distance of 1 kilometer, or 0.62 miles, above the ground. Smits says the dead pixel is "concept art" and will be left on display for those in the field or people looking for it in Google Earth.
Photo- and video-sharing site Photobucket announced Tuesday that its application programming interface has been available for one year. To date, over 1,800 developers have signed up for the API and the company said that a variety of applications were created, helping it reach 55 million monthly unique visitors. The API is still available on Photobucket's site.
The weather over the past few days has been awful across the U.S. Just as I was thinking that spring had finally sprung, another six inches of snow fell and, once again, I was forced to head outside and start shoveling.
Only this time, I didn't even know the storm was coming. I hadn't visited my typical weather destinations on the Web and I hadn't checked out my mobile apps. It was, for the lack of a better term, a perfect storm. So when I woke up yesterday morning and saw just how much snow had fallen, you can imagine why I thought writing this column, detailing the best destinations across the Web for finding weather information quickly, was such a good idea.
Weather on the Web
AccuWeather
Where AccuWeather really shines is in its local page. Once you input your ZIP code, you'll be immediately brought to a page that takes a look at your local weather over the next 15 days (which is 5 more than you get at most sites). It also features hourly weather data, precipitation probabilities throughout the day, and radar images zoomed in on your location. On a calm day like today, there isn't much to see. But when bad weather is about to hit, I've found that AccuWeather's data is spot on.
For example, back in January, we were hit hard with almost a foot of snow in my area. Other sites like The Weather Channel expected the snow to start at about 8 a.m. and dump 8 inches before it moved on. When it was all said and done, AccuWeather had it right: the snow started at noon and we had over a foot to shovel out. It's not an isolated event. Time and again, AccuWeather has proved itself as the most reliable source I use for weather information.
The Weather Channel
The Weather Channel's homepage is designed well and it provides good information about the biggest weather stories in the U.S. While that's a welcome addition, when something major is happening in a specific area of the country, I've found that the homepage doesn't offer much more than that, making it generally useless for quickly checking out local weather reports.
While local pages on The Weather Channel do offer basic information like current temperature and forecasts up to 10 days, I've found that there isn't as much data as I would like. In fact, the site features far less information than what you can find on a site like AccuWeather. Sure, it has the radar maps and you can put those in motion, but by and large, I was generally unimpressed by how deep it goes. And as mentioned earlier, I've found that it's not as accurate as AccuWeather, which makes it a less than ideal destination.
That said, the Weather Channel redeems itself with its ubiquity. You can easily search the site from your Firefox browser, since it's one of your choices in the search bar and if you query Google with "weather," you can search the company's site directly in the search engine. Even better, if you sign up for Weather.com, it can send weather alerts to your mobile phone or e-mail address. It's a simple addition and sometimes it can be annoying when it sends weather advisories for areas far away from where you live, but it comes in handy when a storm is on the way.
WeatherUnderground
The first thing that struck me about WeatherUnderground was how well it's designed. Unlike the sites mentioned already, WeatherUnderground's front page features a map placed prominently in the middle of the page, as well as a general forecast for the entire nation if you want to get a quick view of what's going on. The site also makes it easy to switch maps from "Fronts," showing where the weather currently is, to temperature, humidity, radar, and others. It has it all.
However, once I made my way to the local page on WeatherUnderground I wasn't so impressed. It didn't forecast days nearly as far out as AccuWeather, and the information provided seemed far more basic than what I could find on competing sites. That said, it boasts an outstanding feature, dubbed "Weather Stations," that provides you with all the necessary information like temperature, current conditions, wind, and much more from every weather station in the area. When I searched for my location, I found more than 30 weather stations. It was an ideal tool to find out how the weather was around town.
WeatherUnderground isn't the best destination on the Web if you want accurate weather data; AccuWeather once again provided the best forecasts. But with a great-looking homepage and some useful features found on its local pages, WeatherUnderground isn't a bad stop on your way to finding local reports and extended forecasts.
Mobile apps and alerts
You can also find some nice tools on your mobile phone, including mobile apps and alert services that make it quick and easy to get weather data no matter where you are. (Note: Each of the sites above offer free weather apps that I won't review here. But I will say that they're all worth using.)
WeatherBug
WeatherBug isn't the best forecast destination and it won't stand up to more robust online sites like AccuWeather, but when you're in a rush and you want information quickly, it's an ideal app because it's free and feature packed.
When I started using WeatherBug on my iPhone, I was shocked at how much the developers packed into the lightweight app. Along with forecasts and radar, the app boasts hour-by-hour data, precipitation expectations, and much more. But my favorite feature has little to do with weather at all: each location you search for in WeatherBug features a camera page, which lets you see a real-time snapshot of the area. It's depressing when I look outside and see snow and then look up Key West, Fla., in WeatherBug and see a beach and sunny skies. But it's still a neat feature.
WeatherBug also provides alerts and advisories from the National Weather Service. In a matter of moments after a weather advisory is issued, WeatherBug pings the app and updates its alerts section with the advisory. It's a useful feature when the weather gets really bad.
The National Weather Service Mobile
Along with your local forecast and current conditions, the National Weather Service mobile page features a satellite image of the U.S. that you can loop, and local radar to see where the bad weather is and where it's going. It's simply the best way to get radar data on a mobile phone.
Weather Alerts
Weather Alerts will send you a text message or e-mail each time there's a weather advisory issued by the National Weather Service. The information includes all the weather information included in the advisory, and more will filter in as conditions change. The alerts can be annoying at times, and you probably won't care to receive them once the weather advisory expires, but it's a good way to receive updates when your power is out and you need information quickly, for example.
Weather Alerts are free and the information they provide couldn't be more up-to-date or useful. And although there are times when I wish I didn't subscribe to the service, it's my handy companion when the power is out and there's a bad storm raging overhead. If nothing else, it's a great service to have as a backup when you can't access other sites.
Got any of your own favorites? Leave them in the Talkback.
(Credit:
CNET)
Just in time for Groundhog Day, I pulled together a small collection of desktop weather applications for checking everything from current weather conditions to 15-day forecasts and detailed readings on wind and clouds. For those with modest forecast needs, Yahoo and Google both offer a small, attractive widget that shows the temperature at a glance. The only problem is, you have to have already installed a much larger desktop application in order to get the tiny widget.
On Friday, AccuWeather released an even simpler solution--a small weather-checker for Windows, Mac, and Linux that runs on the free Adobe AIR platform (Windows|Mac). AccuWeather's widget is about as basic as they come, with just enough information for the daily or five-day forecaster. There are daytime and nighttime readings, icons that communicate clear, cloudy, or rainy conditions at a glance, and the ability to change locations. Click a button and a five-day forecast pops out. Click another to switch between Fahrenheit and Celsius, between light and dark text, and to get a read on one of your saved locations. If you click a temperature itself, AccuWeather takes you to its Web site, where more information abounds.
The new AIR application isn't quite as polished looking as Yahoo and Google's widgets, but it makes for a convenient download that supplies desktop meteorologists the weather-watching essentials.
Weather apps have been a fixture on the iPhone and iPod touch since Day 1, but it wasn't until this week that it gained a full-featured contribution from The Weather Channel.
San Francisco's forecast today.
(Credit: CNET)The free Weather Channel Interactive Interactive makes use of tabs to cram in localized weather, extended forecasts, and video. There's a tab for severe weather advisories and an e-mail function to send a weather notice to a friend in your address book.
The Weather Channel is making much ado about a feature in the Explore Map tab that lets you add "map layers" and neighborhood points, essentially a combination of radar and clouds, the UV index, and rainfall watches that show up on the map alongside personal points of interest.
The weird yellow glow is a temperature map, with a highlight over a local airport.
(Credit: CNET)The idea is to dot your iPhone's map with as much detailed data as you need so you can track specific weather conditions at the airport, park, golf course, and so on--but only one map layer and neighborhood point at a time. It's a toss-up if that restriction is for the best--when zoomed in, the map crowds quickly.
Videos for local and international daily forecasts are a smart addition, and something that really sets this app apart. The Video tab will play the local forecast for the current location that The Weather Channel Interactive picked out using GPS, or for other favorites you saved. More videos by region and country are tucked into the More menu, though they're limited to the US, UK, France, Canada, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean.
While there's a lot of good information in here, the weather home screen that most people will check in with most often is blanketed with a dull blue that's very blah compared to the iPhone's native weather widget that's designed by Yahoo, but which grabs data from The Weather Channel. However, the biggest problem facing the Weather Channel's proprietary application, is stability. The app crashed on me four times during testing in an area with moderate signal.
Otherwise, this app is a good start for The Weather Channel, and one that brings tangible value with its video and e-mail extras.
Okay so Sleep.fm, the browser based "social alarm clock" won't actually help you sleep, but it's got a brand new way to wake you up that's straight out of a science fiction movie. In this case it's this past summer's blockbuster hit Iron Man, where Tony Stark's journalist friend wakes up to a local weather report spoken by computer butler Jarvis.
Sleep.fm now offers something similar by waking you up to the local weather conditions and temperature with with a computer-generated voice and soft bell sounds. All you need to do is drop in your zip code and what time you want. It lets you stack up as many alarms as you wish, and they'll play as long as you've got that browser tab up and running.
Going forward the service plans to offer a call-back service that lets you delegate certain alarms as phone calls, so you'll be able to get it beamed to your handset in case you've got one of the few cell phones without its own alarm feature. It could also be a fantastic way to get out of an awkward blind date.
You can now choose to be woken up by the weather conditions of any zip code you choose with browser based alarm system Sleep.fm.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Sony's PlayStation 3 got a small update early Thursday morning that added a new channel called Life with PlayStation. It merges news feeds, weather forecasts, and live Web cams on a giant world map.
It's an evolution on the Folding@Home application, the protein-folding scientific project that's gotten a hefty processing boost from worldwide PlayStation 3 owners who run the small application when not using their systems to play games or watch movies.
What makes the service neat is that it figures out where you are and automatically jumps to that point when you start it up. The news feeds are pulled in from Google News, while the weather reports are served up in real time via the Weather Channel. As you move around the globe, both the news and weather changes by city, and both are continuously updated throughout the day.
A similar offering was provided by Nintendo for its Wii system back in January of 2007 with both its News and Forecast channels, however in the U.S. the stories were limited to those from the Associated Press, unlike Sony's offering which pulls them in from all over the Web.
Noam Rimon, Sony Entertainment of America's senior development manager of R&D, provides a walk through the updated service in the video below.
Umbrella Today is a refreshingly simple service that helps you figure out whether or not you should bring an umbrella out into this crazy world we live in. You just plug in your ZIP code (sorry international users) and it will give you a simple yes or no answer.
Rain or shine, you're given the option to sign up for an SMS alert service. It lets you know the next time you should bring an umbrella for that selected ZIP code whenever precipitation is in the forecast. You can also set what time of the day you want them delivered--like before you leave the house.
Related: Rain and shine hit Google Maps and Google Earth
[via BuzzFeed]
Wondering whether or not you'll be needing some rain protection? Umbrella Today gives you the heads up.
(Credit: CBS Interactive)Two of the most useful online services have got to be maps and weather.
With this in mind, The Weather Channel Interactive is offering a new mapplet for Google Maps that lets people add customizable weather layers to maps and see weather data on Google Earth (download it for Windows or Mac OS X).
One click and you can see the clouds over San Francisco on Google Maps. Pop-up bubbles provide more detailed information like current conditions including temperature, humidity, wind speed and UV Index. You can also find links to forecasts and track storms.
The weather information combines data from Doppler radar, satellite, lightning strike detection, computer models and climate profiles.
The weather mapplet is in the Featured Content section in the My Maps utility on Google Maps, while the data is in a weather layer on Google Earth.
Google Maps now shows weather data compliments of The Weather Channel Interactive.
(Credit: The Weather Channel Interactive/Google)
As of today, Google Earth can finally tell you what the weather is like while you zoom around the 3D representation of our planet. The app has a new layer that lets you toggle cloud cover, Doppler radar, and conditions and forecasts, which will show you what's on tap in each region using information aggregated from Weather.com. There's also an "information" link that has more background about each of the services and links to download the 6- and 24-hour cloud animations, which can be controlled using playback buttons in the top right of your screen. It looks just like you've seen on any TV weather report, except you have complete control on the playback slider, and can drag is backward and forward ad nauseum to bend the clouds to your will (it's great fun).
I couldn't manage to get the "conditions and forecasts" sublayer to activate with the latest build for Windows, but maybe that's just me. Everything else works marvelously, including the Doppler radar that Google claims is "near real-time," which is a reasonable considering it's updated every 15 minutes--about what you'd find at most weather sites. The data for Doppler comes from Weather.com and is limited to the contiguous United States, with plans to roll it out to Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Europe "shortly." All other regions of the globe are limited to cloud cover and forecasts, which Google pins at somewhere around 50,000 cities worldwide.
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