Resource Thread 2024

[SouthHillFrosty]

Starting a resource thread. Pls drop any links you think ppl might find helpful  

[SouthHillFrosty]

• Pivotal Weather is free to self serve to check out the models.
• AtticRadar is a solid radar website.
• Puget Sound topographic map (not weather related but a great website).

 

Edited May 30 by SouthHillFrosty

[Meatyorologist]

Will add to this later. At work right now. I'll start a pinned comment that I'll keep editing with more and more links. Love this idea

[Sunriver Snow Zone]

climateatlas.org  is a great website to check out averages all over the planet, and you can add climate filters to your search.

weather.cod.edu/forecast/legacy/  free website for models and I personally like it's layout more than pivotal and it is much quicker on mobile than pivotal if you have a lack of connection, although the GEM and ECMWF release much slower than pivotal.

[Doinko]

I like using this site for past radar:

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/GIS/apps/rview/warnings.phtml

[GobBluth]

19 minutes ago, Sunriver Snow Zone said:

climateatlas.org  is a great website to check out averages all over the planet, and you can add climate filters to your search.

weather.cod.edu/forecast/legacy/  free website for models and I personally like it's layout more than pivotal and it is much quicker on mobile than pivotal if you have a lack of connection, although the GEM and ECMWF release much slower than pivotal.

Good pull on the College of Dupage. That site was my go to for quick access to AFDs at least 15 years ago.

[BLI snowman]

Mark Nelsen has a similar page full of good resources, not sure if anyone else uses it already

https://www.marknelsenweather.com/

[Deweydog]

These two are nice for quick looks at 500mb and other various reanalyses…

https://weather.us/reanalysis/ecmwf-era5/usa-west/geopotential-height-500hpa/20031231-0300z.html

http://www.meteo.psu.edu/ewall/NARR/2019.html

This one is also VERY popular when things get interesting as it gives hourly updates of surface and upper air analyses…

https://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/mesoanalysis/new/viewsector.php?sector=11&parm=925mb&underlay=1&source=1#

 

[Sunriver Snow Zone]

Bump for the people who said they'd get around to this. @Meatyorologist @snow_wizard

Also @Phil because I'm sure he would have a lot of great resources.

[Sunriver Snow Zone]

Bump 

[snow_wizard]

Here's some that I really like.  The first one is for making nationwide precip and temperature maps back to 1895.  The second one is for doing temperature and precip ranks for any part of the United States or the whole United States back to 1895.  Very fun!

NOAA/NCEI U.S. Climate Division Data Plots: NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory

Climate at a Glance | National Time Series | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) (noaa.gov)

For people who are into ENSO, this site gives current SST's, subsurface temps, OLR, 850mb U, 200mb U

CPC - Climate Weather Linkage: El Niño Southern Oscillation (noaa.gov)

This one is for making maps for many elements for many levels of the atmosphere from the surface to the stratosphere.  It can be adjusted to view anything from the entire globe pretty much down to just your backyard.  Maps can be made back to 1948 and can be set for normal, mean, and anomaly.

Daily Climate Composites: NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory

[snow_wizard]

I have to say, I think it's time for one of these!  BTW I'll post more links later.

[Meatyorologist]

Official WX Resource Thread

This page will be dedicated to an actively compiled list of weather related resources, kept on this pinned post. Please feel free to add more links of your own, as this will be continuously updated.

Note that many of these websites offer plenty of other features in addition to the category they are placed under. Please check them out!

Weather Forecasting

Tropical Tidbits - Free of charge. Great UI, large selection of models to choose from, including global and mesoscale, as well as CAM's. Their preset PNW regional view is the best in its field and shows grispaces well offshore in addition to our area. It can run a tad slow though; the Euro being the worst offender by far, coming in two, three, even four hours late. They have EC/EPS "fast" options at a lower spatial and temporal resolution but even those come in with an hour or so delay. Still, I use this website the most, since the GFS still comes in mostly on time, and its UI can not be beat.

Pivotal Weather - The other major free website for viewing weather models. Its UI leaves a lot to be desired; their PNW view only displays the land region of the PNW and none of the Pacific ocean, so tracking incoming weather systems can be tedious since you have to use the entire North America gridset option to even see them at all. Additionally, its frame view slider is either broken or overly complicated, or both. On the flipside, Pivotal Weather has a behemoth selection of models to choose from and one of the best color schemes in the business. And where it really stands out is in its timing. I'm not sure if it's because they use top of the line servers, or if they tip their API providers, but their frames roll out in what I'm assuming to be real time. You'll notice I use Pivotal Weather during wintertime nightshifts.

College of DuPage (COD) - Another freebie. This one can be decent for convective situations since it has the RAP and SREF (rip SREF PNW coverage) but it's generally a tier down in terms of quality compared to the two former options. Still though! A very respectable backup and worth a spot in your bookmarks.

Weathernerds - An absolute hidden gem. Completely free. Massive quantity and variety in its selections. Super high temporal resolution (hourly in some cases!) And best of all, and I think this is really freaking cool, a completely modular grid view. Not to mention point and click soundings for every single model in its selection, and snappy frame rollout timing. Its one single issue? Its UI.... It definitely looks like a "Weathernerd" made it in Linux, lol. Get past the steep-ish learning curve and you have probably the single best website on this list. It's such a shame I rarely ever hear it mentioned.

UW WRF - Cliff Mass' one true love. He helped make it, and you'll only find it here. It runs at a 1.3km resolution, so it supposedly handles local mesoscale features like the PSCZ very well. It's a local PNW model only, so it doesn't forecast for areas outside this region. My personal opinion? Well, it's simply another link to add. I check it from time to time. It has its own ensemble plume as well, so its versatility is something to note.

 

[Cloud]

This is one of my top pages to track throughout the summer. It's maintained by Scott Sistek. He's gonna be updating this quite often with the heatwave coming. 

https://twitter.com/SummerMinutes

 

https://sundodger.net/summer.html 

[NWbyNW]

These are what I use on a near daily basis.

Pivotal Weather

NOAA Forecast Discussion (Varies by office)

Weather Underground

UW Department of Atmospheric Sciences Data & Forecasts

PNW Environmental Forecasts and Observations

WA Ecology Air Quality Monitor

Puget Sound Air Quality Map

FireSmoke Forecast

Washington Smoke Information Blog

Oregon Smoke Information Blog

Idaho Smoke Information Blog

California Smoke Information Blog

BC Wildfire Map

AirNow Fire and Smoke Map

IQAir

Seattle Summer Stats

Cliff Mass Weather Blog

[Sunriver Snow Zone]

Could someone link to a few tools to check historical stats? I don't know many websites to go to for that.

[SouthHillFrosty]

On 7/12/2024 at 2:24 PM, Sunriver Snow Zone said:

Could someone link to a few tools to check historical stats? I don't know many websites to go to for that.

In general, area, time? Or just a broad resource?

[iFred]

https://www.kirklandreporter.com/life/the-history-of-puget-sound-storms/

[Meatyorologist]

16 hours ago, iFred said:

https://www.kirklandreporter.com/life/the-history-of-puget-sound-storms/

Nice article, but it's wrong about claiming 1968-69 was a La Niña. It was a staunch moderate El Niño. Weirdly.

[iFred]

6 hours ago, Meatyorologist said:

Nice article, but it's wrong about claiming 1968-69 was a La Niña. It was a staunch moderate El Niño. Weirdly.

You'll have my resignation on your desk by EoD.