Weather Forecasting Resources

This list of sites was compiled by students and faculty in the Texas A&M Practical Weather Forecasting class.

Radar

• Weather Underground NEXRAD Radar Page
  • This site has quite a few features, most of which work intuitively and should be fairly easy for even a layperson to use. Most interestingly, it includes both multiple types of radar data (reflectivity, base/SR velocities, etc.), as well as 20 min-40 min-60 min storm tracks, in addition to the most common features seen on most radar websites. This site's strength is its ease of use and readability; it does a good job of making the data easy to grasp via the helpful map legends and pan/zoom features. While other sites like the NWS may contain similar or better information, they're hard-pressed to display it as well as this site does.
• Plymouth State University NIDS Radar Page
  • This is a solid radar site, its main strength being the variety of NIDS radar data to choose from. You can select base reflectivity/velocity, SR velocity, composite reflectivity, wider-area reflectivity, echo tops, precip, even VAD profiler winds for each radar station. It also has a large number of sites to choose from. Overall, this site can help you flesh out a more complete picture of the local situation.
• UCAR Radar Page
  • This is a good page to use when researching events within the past five days, since its archive includes hourly data over that period, and the ability to run up to 12-hour loops. It also has a large number of radar stations to choose from, covering most of the US, though only 0.5 degree reflectivity and velocity are available locally. One handy feature is its ability to generate a regional image centered on a station you choose; very useful for grasping the larger situation around a particular station. The only problem with the site is that occasionally images are not available, either due to radar maintenance or to problems with the site itself. The online archive includes five days.
• NWS National Radar Mosaic (from main page)
  • This site's strength is that it's a mosaic; it allows you to get the national picture, which helps when comparing with current analyses. It also allows you to zoom into various regions of the country, so you can see a more specific area of interest, but not as limited as with a single radar's view. This can indirectly help with point forecasts, by helping you see what's beyond the radar's range. While limited in scope of content overall, it's a good first stop in gathering information for forecasting purposes.
• College of DuPage Analysis Page
  • This is a handy radar site to visit. Its strength seems to be its graphics and looping capability. Its radar loops are very smooth, and allows you to control them frame-by-frame, including omitting and dwelling on frames, as well as forward and reverse playback. This site can help if you're trying to get an intuitive feel for what a particular weather feature is doing. It may even help if you're trying to isolate a particular feature embedded within a system.
• AccuWeather Radar Page(s)
  • Though the link goes to the display for a radar station that isn't working, one can just look at AccuWeather's main site, AccuWeather.com, to get good local radar data for individual stations. The local aspect seems to be this site's strength, and it has decent map functionality, including easy-to-read legends, use of a compass, and use of gridlines to help pinpoint system features. Has a large number of local radars to choose from. Overall, it's a pretty useful site for local stuff; doesn't stand out much, but still a solid radar page.
• Unisys Radar Summary
  • Rather basic radar display page, though you can view images from up to six hours ago, compared to about 1 hour for many sites. Has regional views, and you can invert the colors to give a white background (makes it better for printing an image). Other than that, you can probably get more radar info from other sites (though usually only for a more recent period).