2017 Site Updates

Some links and images are no longer available in our older site updates. Additionally, some information is no longer applicable.

For the latest site updates, click here.

Adobe Flash diagrams will work again more easily in Google Chrome. You now only need to click the diagram to enable Flash on our site.

On September 22nd for the first time we manually added HDOB data for the Coyote Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), launched from NOAA's P-3 aircraft, into the recon system. In the future we plan on adding this data in real time. Originally we had to change the raw obs for our system to process it. Today we updated the system to be able to handle the data. The plane icon is also now of a Coyote drone rather than the P-3 aircraft. We plan on making additional updates to how the Coyote data is handled in the archive. We will likely eventually link the mission the Coyote was launched from to the HDOB data from the Coyote.

Yesterday we added integrated kinetic energy (IKE) and surge destructive potential (SDP) calculations to the best track page in the model system for a storm. They are based on the calculator here from NOAA's Hurricane Research Division. "These estimates are based on some very coarse wind field assumptions. An improved estimate would come from a gridded wind analysis or model input data using the methods described in Powell and Reinhold 2007." The gridded wind analysis that NOAA used to produce, H*Wind, was transferred to a private company in 2014 and is no longer available for free. The IKE values below can differ considerably from the IKE values from a gridded analysis of a storm's wind field. We plan on adding additional information to the page about these calculations, as well as including the SDP value elsewhere.

An error where NOAA P-3 radar data was not available between 8pm and 11:59pm EDT should now be fixed.

Our site's model and recon systems stopped operating after our site was moved to a new server. Our web hosting provider corrected the problem and the site is operating normally again. Missing data was added back to the site.

Today Adobe announced "we will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020". Our site uses Flash for multiple chart types. In the model system, model wind speed, model pressure and model error charts. In the recon system, dropsonde and AXBT charts. I have planned to switch to pure JavaScript, but it might still be a few years.

The model system has been configured to attempt to recognize a disturbance that is a potential tropical cyclone and name it as such.