Friday, October 14, 2011
Where is the Sun?
The forecast for Star Valley the past couple of days has called for mostly sunny. Anyone in the valley knows that there has been very little in the way of sunshine on Thursday and so far today. As with most of the weather that effects Star Valley, the mountains play a big role. In this case even though Idaho Falls and Pocatello have been enjoying lots of sunshine, the lift from the Caribou and Salt Ranges has continually developed cloudiness. To see this process in action go to the Web Camera page and build a several hour loop off the first cam looking out over the valley. The processes that are maintaining the cloud cover over the valley are quite evident. This can also be seen on the Forecast page and the visible loop over the area.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Current Conditions
There are three options under Current Conditions, Temperatures, Winds and Rainfall. The plot is centered over Star Valley. Sources of the data are varied and in some areas overlap making it difficult to see all the stations. Rolling the mouse across the data will pop up a source id. The listing below the graphic is of all the stations that are displayed.
The plot is updated every 15 minutes. Rainfall totals are for the 24 hours ending at data plot time.
The plot is updated every 15 minutes. Rainfall totals are for the 24 hours ending at data plot time.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Weather Cameras
The Weather Camera is a link to the site www.halescamvideo.com that was developed by John Hales as a Christmas Gift to me(his father) in 2008. While John provides any technical needs, I am the site manager and maintain quality control of the Cams on the site.
At any given time there could be as many as 130 web cams displayed. The criteria used to determine the display of a camera are:
1. Quality of the image.(StarDot Cameras much preferred).
2. Frequency of updates. (ideally every minute)
3. Proximity to Star Valley WY
4. View of the sky.
5. Reliability
Current Features
Left click on the image will provide a larger current image
The cursor at the top of each cam will open up the control menu for that particular cam.
Left click on the minutes option(30 60 120 180 300) will build a loop of that length in time.
Left click on the info (i) button and it will bring up a google map centered on the webcam location. Additionally it will display the latest weather observation and identifying the location of the observation.
There is also a radar option which when turned on will display the current composite reflectivity product from the NWS
Clicking on the + will open up a looping option. At least 3 days are available in the archive for all cams. Selecting the date/time and looping length in minutes will rebuild a loop.
There are two options when building a loop. The Load Loop option will rebuild a requested time period and display it. A much more powerful option is the Create Video. This will build the requested time period and then display the Download mp4 Video which will then produce a url that can be copied/sent or saved as a video file.
As an example using this command a video was made of the Star Valley Ranch snow gauge on March 2 2012 when the snow depth was at its deepest point during the past winter. This video was created on November 3 2012 as the number of archived days for this particular cam extended back that far.
http://www.camviewing.com/clips/SVH1_2012-11-03-2256MST_300.mp4
While all cams have at least the most recent 3 days archived, additional days can be added to a particular cam upon request.
At any given time there could be as many as 130 web cams displayed. The criteria used to determine the display of a camera are:
1. Quality of the image.(StarDot Cameras much preferred).
2. Frequency of updates. (ideally every minute)
3. Proximity to Star Valley WY
4. View of the sky.
5. Reliability
Current Features
Left click on the image will provide a larger current image
The cursor at the top of each cam will open up the control menu for that particular cam.
Left click on the minutes option(30 60 120 180 300) will build a loop of that length in time.
Left click on the info (i) button and it will bring up a google map centered on the webcam location. Additionally it will display the latest weather observation and identifying the location of the observation.
There is also a radar option which when turned on will display the current composite reflectivity product from the NWS
Clicking on the + will open up a looping option. At least 3 days are available in the archive for all cams. Selecting the date/time and looping length in minutes will rebuild a loop.
There are two options when building a loop. The Load Loop option will rebuild a requested time period and display it. A much more powerful option is the Create Video. This will build the requested time period and then display the Download mp4 Video which will then produce a url that can be copied/sent or saved as a video file.
As an example using this command a video was made of the Star Valley Ranch snow gauge on March 2 2012 when the snow depth was at its deepest point during the past winter. This video was created on November 3 2012 as the number of archived days for this particular cam extended back that far.
http://www.camviewing.com/clips/SVH1_2012-11-03-2256MST_300.mp4
While all cams have at least the most recent 3 days archived, additional days can be added to a particular cam upon request.
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