New Amateur Radio Internet Radio Linking Protocol (IRLP) Node 8962

Along with maintaining the weather site, one of my other interest is Amateur Radio. Recently I opened a new node for IRLP here in Rock Hall. There is only one other IRLP node on the Eastern Shore and it's down in Ocean City, MD

If your an active Han Radio operator, feel free to try this new node. You can find more details at IRLP Node 8962 on the weather site.

Let me know how you like it!

Steve

Live Webcam

As you all know, bandwidth is a valuable commodity. With that in mind it's become difficult for me to continue to allow the live streaming of the weather webcam. Effective today it has been removed from the site. I plan to look for other alternatives and should they become available I'll re-initiate the live stream.

Steve

Tropical WX Page

Ever since StormPulse went commercial and started charging for their feed, I have neglected to followup with some alternative.
Tropical storm Andrea got me thinking that we needed something so I've added a new page called Tropical WX. You'll see the link in the Navigation Menu on the left of the home page.

The page uses a few images from Weather Underground Tropical Weather Center and parses data from the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

Give it a try, let me know what you think!

New Weather Gauges

My old Weather Display Live page was a Flash based environment. It seems that along with Apple, many of the browsers in android phones and tablets also don't support Flash.

To fix this I've added a new page called Live WX Gauges - take a look and let me know what you think!

Steve

Major Site Updates

Recent upgrades by my hosting company required that site code be upgraded to support PHP 5.4.9. This was a big project but it also gave me the opportunity to enhance some features. The following is a list of changes and upgrades.

•  forecast page expanded to seven days and a drop down menu now offers a selection of 8 other local towns that NWS forecasts. Rock Hall is the default.
• Advisories page has been expanded to cover 7 Counties and a Weather Warning map has been added
• County Advisories pages has a new look
• Live Webcam has a second camera added (work still in process)
• Live Air Traffic link has been added - similar to AIS ship traffic
• Nearby Metar has been expanded - 20 stations now reporting with a new page format
• Weather Flyer page now has included the local tide predictions
• Almanac Station Monthly Report added: Monthly/Daily weather info
• Almanac Station Historical Data added: daily records back to 2010 maintained by Weather Underground from data supplied by this site
• Almanac Space Weather page added
• Almanac Earthquake page updated - new Google map shows quake activity location
• Status page added
• Website map added

If you happen to notice anything that's not working or if I've missed anything from the old site, let me know and I'll do what I can to make corrections.

State/Weather/Popular Beliefs and Trivia

If you've gotten tired of the same old facts and trivia popping up on the bottom of the home page, take a new look.......I've added a new collection of weather, popular beliefs and trivia to the collection......many I think you'll find very interesting!

Tropical Storm Page

In the past my Hurricane coverage has been parsed from StormPulse . They have recently gone commercial and there subscription fees are beyond the scope of my weather site. I've re-done the Storm Report page and I'm now getting updates and links from the NOAA National Hurricane Center. I've also added (4) maps to display the Atlantic Basin. You can click on these maps to enlarge. The enlargement technique is also new. I like it and may try to use it on other pages.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know!

Webcam/IP Camera

We've had reported problems about the webcam page not working well in all browsers.
The image is called in an iFrame and after some adjustments it seems to be working well from my testing and observations.

IP Camera....Webcam

if you have problems viewing the live stream, please let me know. It would be helpful if you could tell me what operating system you are using and what browser.

Thanks

CWOP Data Quality Report Page Added

CWOP Data Quality Page

The Citizen Weather Observer Program (CWOP) is a private-public partnership with the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. Its three main goals: 1) to collect weather data contributed by citizens; 2) to make these data available for weather services; and 3) to provide feedback to the data contributors so that they have the tools to check and improve their data quality.

We've added this page to monitor and show the Belcak Weather Station reported data accuracy and quality.

The link can be found under the Navigation list - Tools/Info - Data Quality

Advisories update

Some of you may have noticed the Advisories Tab has not been updating since March 15.
NOAA had changed the feed url for weather alerts.

This morning I had a chance to track down the new info and update the script. The alert summaries seem to be current and all is back in order.

The real test will come when alerts are posted. Let me know if things seem not to be working.

Thanks

Webcam Moved Outside

Well it's taken a while but I finally relocated the wx webcam to a spot on the post that supports my Davis Weather Station.

There's still work to do in setting up all of the presets but you can try many of the features at Belcak Weather Station or go directly to IPcamera .

As usual, I'm open to comments or suggestions.

Thanks

Webcam PTZ Working

I updated the webcam page on the site....now you can control the camera with pan, tilt and zoom.

New Webcam

This week I upgraded the web cam to a new Panasonic BB-HCM735A IP Network Camera. The camera has PTZ and zoom capability. Shortly I hope to be able to add that feature to the web page and let the viewer control the camera. The camera looks to the southeast onto Swan Creek and in the morning it works hard to deal with the sun and reflection off the water.

This time of year we have lots of geese who make Swan Creek there home. Enjoy the view and let me know how it works for you!

Home Page Update

Major update to the home or index page - added the following:
Additional Rain - data points
Additional Humidity - data points
Additional Barometer - data points
7 Day Averages
Cloud Height
Rock Hall Tides and Tide Clock
Record Temps for this day
Normal Temps for this day
Heating and Cooling Degree Days

look for the small ? next to several of the titles....click for additional info.

Facts and Trivia

Added a new facts and trivia section to the bottom of the home page.......
You get a new piece of info each time you open the page......

For now the information is limited but I'll continue to expand it as I find more information.

Gradient Thermometer

This morning I made a small change to the thermometer on the home page......
rather than a fixed color thermometer, it will now show a gradient color based on reported temperature.

It's a cosmetic tweak that improves the image.

Wind Detail Report

Added a new wind detail report to monitor and log average and high daily winds.

Wind Report

Updated Mobile Cell/PDA WX Report

I'm pleased to provide a live weather feed for your cell phone or pda. For the purists, this does not create true WAP code, but rather HTML pages suitable for viewing in most cell phones. It's been tested with Blackberry, iPhone and Palm units. My expectation is that the feed will display equally well on other phones as well.

Included within the conditions page is the daily Tide Prediction.
Also new is a watch/warnings tab that will post local Kent County alerts.

Since these are HTML pages you can click and view them on your browser. This will give you some idea of what you'll see on your phone.

Click here to try it out. Mobile Cell/PDA

Rain & Temp Details

Two new reports added today:

Daily rain totals, by year, by month, by day Rain Detail

Daily Temperature Hi/Lo by year, by month, by day Temp Detail

I'm glad to have these in place prior to the start of the new year.

Both are in the Menu under Almanac

Weather Logo's

Added a few live weather logo's to the site. Feel free to display the current weather in Rock Hall, MD. by using one of my weather Logo's. Just select and copy the HTML code for the Logo of choice and paste it into your HTML editor.

Let me know if you decide to use one, I'll add you to my updates list should any changes be made.

I hope to be adding two more Logo's size 500x80 px and 500x60 px. Check back for these additions.

Weather Logo