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WEATHER PROFESSIONAL V2.3 Demonstration Documentation (c) 1992 Tim Vasquez January 1, 1993 Weather Pro is a full color EGA/VGA-graphics program which plots high-resolution weather graphic charts. It gets its information from National Weather Service data that you capture on any database you prefer -- no longer are you tied to a specific system (with extra costs) just to get maps. You use the program offline, at your leisure, saving you time and money. Weather Pro is -not- a cute toy. It's a slick tool, and it's about the best one in existence for pilots, amateur weather persons, storm spotters, storm chasers, and just about anyone who wants to have the upper hand on the Weather Channel. It offers some features that are comparable to those seen in weather forecasting centers and on weather briefing terminals used by the major airlines. The high-resolution base map of North America is the big plus. It's plotted in the polar stereographic projection, and on it, you have complete control over zooming and panning! You can even get into the geography database and modify it, say to enhance the coastline, or add highways, county lines, and air routes. There is another file, too, which contains modifiable cities and towns you can overlay with a keystroke -- perfect to determine whether Northville Municipal Airfield is getting hit by a storm or just to see if it's raining over at Grandma's place. The radar plotting ability is the major strength of the program. It produces charts that are strikingly similar in form to those received by National Weather Service forecasters over AFOS circuits. You don't get a dinky, vague CGA chart -- you get a full-color, almost broadcast-quality radar composite. At your option, Weather Pro will overlay maximum tops, bow echoes, hook echoes, line-echo wave patterns, BWERs, WERs, and other significant storm features. It will even outline the exact coordinates of severe squall lines! As you can imagine, it does away with those warped "teletype"-style radar dot maps available on many databases. If you've used one of them, you know how difficult it is to locate a city accurately or plot straight-line routes. Weather Pro pioneers surface analysis on the PC. It adds sky condition, temperature, dewpoint, sea level pressure, and wind data from hourly surface reports in the form of standard plots. You don't get large, oversized plots, which plague many specialized weather graphics maps seen on professional databases. You get a small, meteorologically useful density of data, perfect for examing small-scale (mesoscale) conditions, along with the option to either plot ALL reports or let the computer reduce clutter. You can also instruct Weather Pro to plot the surface wind only, without the other data, to get an idea of the surface wind field. You can't beat it for planning a flight or a trip. Fronts and disturbances will stand out perfectly. Last but not least, Weather Pro decodes FDHI/FDLO upper-air reports, widely used by pilots, to plot upper air wind charts. You choose which level and valid time you want, and Weather Pro selects the correct data set. Like the surface chart, it draws a network of standard station plots. The results are sharp. Compositing is a state-of-the-art word in many forecast offices today. It means being able to overlay radically different types of data on one another, and it's a key concept in the National Weather Service's new AWIPS (Advanced Weather Interactive Processing) computer system. Weather Pro brings this power to your desk. For example, you can plot the color radar chart and then overlay surface data on it, perhaps to find out if that front is driving the storms or not, or what the winds in a rain area are. Then you might want to zoom in really close for a better look at the mesoscale composite, and allow Weather Pro to fill in more data in that area. Or you can overlay the upper-level winds on the squall line to see how the storms will be steered. Weather Pro offers auto-compositing, too, to memorize your keystrokes when you're in a rush. And it's fast. On my Gateway 386/25, the North American base map plots in four seconds. Take a huge 150,000-byte weather data file. Sifting through this mountain of information, Weather Pro plots surface observations in 12 seconds. Upper-level wind data takes about 7 seconds. Radar height data plots in 8 to 17 seconds. Radar decoding takes anywhere from 8 to 30 seconds. The catch? You have to get the data yourself. To save time and effort, many terminal programs will let you design a script to automate the process. Where do you get the data? YOU decide! For example, on CompuServe, aviation weather is part of the basic services -- $8 a month, with no connect charges. Pilots can use DUAT and Weathermation, which are free. Weather Pro will sink its teeth into almost ANY raw data from ANY database. Without a doubt, Weather Pro is one of the most powerful, flexible tools available to amateur forecasters, pilots, and students. A. REQUIREMENTS Weather Pro requires a PC or 100% compatible with at least EGA (640 x 350 x 16) graphics. A 286 (AT) or higher grade computer is recommended to avoid slow performance. A hard drive will also speed things up somewhat. You will also need 200K of empty space, minimum, in your Weather Pro directory, so installing it on a hard drive is recommended. The final requirement is a source of weather reports. You will need either FDHI/FDLO reports, surface aviation reports, or SD radar data. The data source should NOT modify the original reports in any way (no "decoded" reports, for example!). CompuServe, AccuWeather, Contel DUAT, and Weathermation are examples of data sources which have been successfully tested with Weather Pro. B. TERMS OF USE If you're on any BBSs, feel free to upload and distribute the -demo- version, WEATHER.ZIP, which is available on CompuServe as WEATHE.ZIP. My only restrictions -- you may not tamper with the content of that file in any way, nor can you sell the file for profit or include it as part of another package. THE WEATHER PRO SYSTEM IS PROVIDED WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. The author makes no claims or representation as to its accuracy, reliability, or fitness for a particular purpose. The author disavows any liability connected with this program and documentation, and the user assumes all risks from the application and use of it. You use it at your own risk! If you need guaranteed precision and reliability, I will gladly point you toward the thousand-dollar-plus packages produced for the weather industry by companies such as Kavouras and Alden. Although I will try to snuff out all errors and release corrected updates, you should use Weather Pro with caution and common sense. This especially goes for you pilots, whose lives depend on the weather -- you already know that you're required to get a formal weather briefing before takeoff. Weather Pro, unfortunately, doesn't constitute one. Unformatted weather reports severely test the limitations of any processing method, and since this is a spare-time project for me, I haven't had the time to explore every last data string that could cause this program to malfunction. If you have any comments, suggestions, or questions, you may send them to the addresses listed below, to CompuServe 71611,2267, or to Internet 71611.2267@COMPUSERVE.COM, or GEnie T.VASQUEZ1. C. REGISTERING A COPY A registered copy of Weather Pro is $45. "Forty five dollars?!" you say. "For that much, I'd better get something good!" You do -- first, you get the full-fledged program, of course. It allows you to zoom and roam around in different regions, giving you a tremendous leap in the number of stations you can access. You can plot a temperature analysis, relative humidity contours, and even get an outline of where the MVFR/IFR areas are (for you pilots). And at the touch of a key, Weather Pro will overlay radar heights and show the location of dangerous thunderstorm features. See the enclosed file, SAMPLE.GIF, using a graphics viewing program to get a look at what you'll be in for! Second, you get COMPLETE documentation in the form of a desktop published manual. With that, you get a guide to weather forecasting and thunderstorms, just in case you're wondering what drives the jet streams or what "short waves" are. Third, you get a say in what you'd like to see in future updates -- this program has constantly been improving due to the suggestions of many die-hard users. Fourth, you get FREE UPDATES. You can update your program using the new demo versions which are routinely posted in CompuServe's AVSIG forum and distributed elsewhere. I want to make sure that you never have to re-register just to upgrade your copy! For example, the people who ordered the prehistoric version of this program (RadarScan) are updating their registered program right now with this package. If you're registered and can't find a demo, all you have to do is mail me a disk and a SASE disk mailer and I'll burn you off a copy, no charge. This policy also protects you from future price increases. Sound good? I'll be moving late in March, so take note of these two addresses to send your registration. Even in spite of the move, you can still expect to get your program quickly. Your order will be sent to you first class through the U.S. Post Office. Address all checks in my name. Here's where to order (print out the enclosed order form, ORDER.FRM, to save time). BEFORE MARCH 20, 1993 -- Tim Vasquez, PSC Box 1196, CAFB, IL 61868. AFTER MARCH 20, 1993 -- Tim Vasquez, 3222 Kingswood Drive, Garland, Texas 75040. D. OPERATION Here's a brief outline of what it takes to use Weather Pro. Once you get familiar with the process, you can build batch and script files which automate the entire process to your own specifications. And with the right software, you can even let your PC dial up and display a new chart every hour -- automatically! 1. ACCESS the data (and capture it as shown in step 2 below). Using any quality terminal communications program log into your database and capture one or all of the following. It doesn't matter what order the reports are in, as long as they aren't modified. Retrieve one or all of the following: a. ALL radar reports in the United States for the hour. This may take about 1 to 2 minutes at 2400 baud. You can select certain regions only, but your map may be incomplete as a result. b. As many surface observations as you can get. There are over 1000 stations in the United States, and this amount of data may take 6 minutes at 2400 baud to download. You may just want to type a list of states, and perhaps some representative stations elsewhere. c. ALL FDLO/FDHI data for the United States. This may take about 3 minutes. On CompuServe, all you have to do is GO AWX from any ! prompt, and at the menu enter SA ALL;SD ALL. You can edit this command as needed, for example SA MO,TX,AR,LA;SD SC, et cetera. On AccuWeather, use commands such as RADU * 1, HRU * 1, etc. On this and other databases, consult the user's guide or call their technical support line for detailed information on properly accessing the neccessary reports. Be sure that you get, at the minimum, the latest hourly reports, not just "special" observations. Weathermation, for example, will ignore a station's hourly if a special observation has been taken recently; you can correct this by specifying a parameter of one-hour's worth of data. Now for the time. Radar and surface reports are not filed at the same time. Radar reports are filed at :25 past the hour and surface observations at :55 past the hour. This causes some complications. You should access data between :10 and :20 past the hour, or :40 to :50 past the hour. Otherwise, you may get a mixed bag of observation times with either radar or surface data. Weather Pro checks report times carefully, and will throw out observations that don't conform to a single time. 2. CAPTURE the data. To do this, turn on your "capture" or "disk log" function to capture the raw radar reports. The best name to choose is DATA.TXT in the Weather Pro directory. Make sure the existing file is deleted first. Some terminal programs may append data to the end of a file if it already exists, and this will eventually cause you problems. So make sure that your "disk log" or "capture" command is configured to destroy any existing file. 3. RUN Weather Pro. Exit the telecommunications program, change the current directory to the Weather Pro directory, and enter WEATHER to run Weather Pro. If you did not save your data to DATA.TXT, append the desired filename to the command, for example, WEATHER 08JUN92.22Z . If you do not have a VGA card (only EGA), or desire an EGA map, append /E to the end of the startup command (for example, enter WEATHER 08JUN92.22Z /E). E. INSIDE THE PROGRAM Once the base map has plotted, there are many keys that you can press to access or manipulate the image. Many of them are listed at the bottom of the screen to help you remember. They can be categorized into movement commands, overlay commands, and other commands. These will be touched upon briefly here. If you're not sure what to do, hit the E key (if you've gotten radar reports). Weather Pro will go to work creating a radar map for you, which will display as soon as it's created. If you have surface data, press D -- this will show a selection of surface reports. Since this is an unregistered copy, there are certain commands that will not work. These are listed seperately to avoid confusion. 1. OVERLAY COMMANDS. Adds specific data to your map. It's part of generating a composite map. a. ANALYSIS (A). Allows you to contour various weather parameters. Weather Pro requires you to have at least several reporting stations in your selected area, since an analysis can't be generated magically. Remember that the fewer the stations, the more unreliable the analysis. Also, the further away from the weather stations you are (such as over the ocean), the more unreliable the analysis. Offshore lows will usually appear to be right on the coast. With tighter zooms, the increase in data resolution will give you improved analysis detail in the region selected. NOTE: The only analysis type available to you as an unregistered user is sea level pressure. These contours are labelled in tens and units of a millibar (e.g. "02" means 1002 millibars, and "74" means 974 mb). Altimeter settings are labelled in tens and units (e.g. "42" means either 29.42 or 30.42 inches). b. BASE MAP (B). Simply overlays the base map without clearing the screen. This is helpful if radar echoes are blocking state borders. c. CITY OVERLAY (C). Overlays cities and towns contained within WEATHER.CTY. The overlay always uses an automatic anti-crowding algorithm to prevent the cities from cluttering each other, so some towns might temporarily disappear on wide zooms. d. DATA PLOT, SURFACE (D). Plots surface data, including sky condition, winds, temperature and dewpoint (degrees F), and pressure. If the configuration does not specify "plot all stations", then Weather Pro automatically invokes an anti-crowding process to keep stations from cluttering each other (so as a result, you may not see every single station available to you at once). e. ECHOES (E). Overlays radar echoes. The echoes are plotted in either squares or bubbles according to the program configuration; bubbles are slightly faster and use less disk space, but squares are more precise. f. IDENTIFICATION (I). Overlays on the map the identifiers of ALL stations in WEATHER.STN, regardless of if they are reporting weather. This will help you customize your WEATHER.STN file. g. MAXIMUM/MINIMUMS (M). Sorts through the data and gives you a tabulation of who's the hottest, who's the coldest, and who's the windiest. You get two summaries -- one for the entire database and one for the screen window in question (depending on the zoom setting). h. QUICK TEMPERATURE PLOT (Q). Plots temperatures across the map region. The "plot all stations" selection in the configuration menu determines whether stations will overlap each other or will keep a legible distance apart. i. REPLOT MAP (R). Plots a clean basemap without moving or rezooming the image. Cleans the slate, so to speak. This is useful when you have accidentally overlaid an unwanted field on the map. It also cleans the auto-composite slate (to be discussed shortly), erasing memorized dataset choices. j. SURFACE WIND FIELD (S). Plots the surface wind field. Note that this does not use anti-crowding to reduce clutter. ALL stations will be plotted regardless of settings. k. UNDO RADAR (U). This command will remove the radar echoes without disturbing other information on the map. Note that if you configure the color settings so that any text or graphics have the same color as a radar echo, it will be erased, too. l. WINDS ALOFT (W). Overlays FDLO or FDHI data from the data file. You will be prompted to enter a height in hundreds of feet MSL (flight level), and then a valid time hour (in UTC -- clock time, not "hours from now"). Use the 24-hour military system, not the am/pm system. To convert your time zone to UTC, add 8 hours to PST, 7 hours to MST, 6 hours to CST, and 5 hours to EST. If the data for the desired hour is not available, this will be indicated at the bottom of the map. Depending on the setting within your configuration, Weather Pro can plot air temperatures in degrees Celsius. Since FD reports do not carry temperatures for the 3,000 foot level, no temperatures will appear on maps at this height. 2. OTHER COMMANDS. a. PERUSE DATA (P). Lets you look through the data report. You can also search by keywords (proper upper or lower case is important). b. TIME (T). Press this to switch to a different observation time in your data file. For example, if you are currently looking at 1355Z observations and want to see 1755Z reports, press T and enter 18 for a surface time (1755 is actually the 18Z observation). If you leave it blank, the computer will determine the best time to use. You will also be prompted for a radar report time, for example, use an entry of 22 to get 2235Z reports, or leave blank to let the computer figure it out. You cannot switch data files within the program. c. CONFIGURATION (X). This will place you in a menu where you can specify your desired program preferences. They will automatically take effect every time you run Weather Pro. Certain options may require you to restart Weather Pro before they take effect. Hit the space bar to flip between the various pages in the configuration module. d. QUIT (ESC). Returns you to MS-DOS. 3. REGISTERED VERSION COMMANDS. When you have registered, these commands will be available for your use. a. NATIONAL MAP (N). Deselects any zoom settings and starts you out with a national map of the United States. b. ZOOM CENTER (Z). Centers the map on any station in the WEATHER.STN database. You will then be prompted for a map width in miles. c. MANUAL ZOOM (Page Up/Page Down). Manually zooms in and out of the map. This will help adjust your zoom. d. MANUAL PAN (Cursor Keys). Moves east, west, north, or south around the region. It will help adjust your map frame. e. HEIGHTS AND RADAR WEATHER (H). Overlays maximum echo heights, bounded weak echo regions (BWERs), weak echo regions (WERs), line echo wave patterns (LEWPs), bow echoes, hook echoes, and hail indications. LEWP coordinates will be plotted on the map using the color specified for the city overlay. If minimum height criteria is specified in the configuration, then all storm tops below that height will not be plotted. F. SURFACE DATA PLOT Weather Pro plots surface data in internationally standardized station plots. The circle or square over the station is shaded according to the amount of cloud cover. If you see a square, this indicates that the station is a computerized site, and the observation should be taken with a grain of salt. A cross indicates a computerized weather station that doesn't take sky condition reports. A wind shaft extends away INTO the wind, and has feathers -- each long feather indicates 10 knots (11.5 mph), and each short feather indicates 5 knots (6 mph). If there is no feather, a circle is plotted around the station, indicating calm winds. Above and to the left of the circle is the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. Below the temperature is the dewpoint in degrees Fahrenheit -- this is a direct indicator of the amount of moisture in the air. If you subtract the dewpoint from the temperature, this gives you the dewpoint depression, which is indicative of the relative humidity of the air (the less the dewpoint depression, the greater the relative humidity). Dewpoint per se is an accurate measure of how much energy is available to a weather system, while the dewpoint depression tells how humid the air is and whether fog or low clouds are possible. If weather is occurring, a special data group is inserted between the temperature and dewpoint. It starts out with a number describing the visibility in statute miles (10 = ten miles, 21/2 = two and a half miles, etc). The letters indicate the type of weather that is occurring. They can be decoded as follows: T thunder, R rain, W shower, S snow, A hail, IP ice pellets (sleet), L drizzle, Z freezing precipitation, F fog, H haze, K smoke, BD blowing dust, BN blowing sand, IC ice crystals. If a + is present, this indicates that the preceding weather type is intense, a - indicates it is weak, and nothing indicates moderate. V may be appended to the visibility number, indicating that the visibility is fluctuating (variable). Pressure is located above and to the right of the station circle. What it means depends on whether SLP (sea level pressure) or ALSTG (altimeter setting) is selected. Sea-level pressure is usually the best parameter for general weather browsing. If the configuration file specifies that pressures will be plotted in sea-level pressure, then it will be plotted in tens, hundreds, and units of a millibar. If the group is above "500", stick a 9 before it; if below, stick a 10 before it. Then move the decimal place between the last and second-to- last digit. For example, 983 is 998.3 mb, 046 is 1004.6 mb, and 423 is 1042.3 mb. Sea-level pressure filters out extremes in pressure due to temperature swings and is more accurate for large-scale analysis, but it's only available at 90% of weather stations. If the configuration specifies that altimeter setting will be plotted, pressure will appear in units, tenths, and hundredths of an inch. If the group is above "500", stick a 2 before it; if below, stick a 3 before it. Then move the decimal place to the middle. For example, 983 equals 29.83 inches, 844 is 28.84 inches, and 043 is 30.43 inches. Altimeter setting is a true barometer reading, is available at almost every weather station, and is used by pilots to set altimeters. It fluctuates markedly with temperature. Finally, if a ceiling is present at a station, its height and method of measurement are plotted in the lower right corner of the station. A ceiling is the lowest layer of cloud which occupies 6/10ths or more of the sky (assuming it is visually present behind lower layers). The alphabetical prefix indicates the method of measurement (E-Estimated, M-Measured, B-Balloon, A-Aircraft, W-Vertical Visibility). The remaining digits are the height in hundreds of feet (M31 = measured ceiling 3100 feet, etc). If the station shows broken or overcast skies yet there is no ceiling shown, this means that the layers are thin and no ceiling is present. G. WINDS ALOFT PLOT Once you select winds aloft from the main menu and enter appropriate data, Weather Pro will search the data files for FDLO/FDHI reports. The more reports there are, the more complete the map will be. Similar to the surface wind plots, the shaft points INTO the wind. Each triangular feather means 50 knots (56 mph), each long feather means 10 knots (11.5 mph), and each short one indicates 5 knots (6 mph). This data is not only useful to pilots. The amateur forecaster can look at the patterns to find jet streams (which are closely associated with frontal activity), along with waves in the upper-level winds. When the flow between 20 and 30 thousand feet is predominantly west-to-east, this is called a zonal flow, meaning that systems tend to be dry and move rapidly. However, a flow with numerous dips and rises north and south is called meridional, or low-zonal. Such a pattern suggests considerable transport of energy and moisture northward and destabilizing cold air southward, meaning systems across the country tend to be slow and intense. H. RADAR ECHO PLOT When Weather Pro plots a radar depiction is plotted, it sifts through the U.S. weather radar network reports and squeezes out all possible data. Its main source of information is from MDR (manually digitized radar) code and polar-coordinate cell reports in the report. Outlined echo areas in the report are not used since they are chunky and often duplicate the MDR data. The decoding process does take a little time; it is this process, not the graphics, that makes it so slow. MDR data is a numerical code which describes intensity levels within a 20-mile Cartesian grid (variable with latitude) overlaid on the radar sweep area. Using MDR data, Weather Pro builds the best possible image by painting a "base map" of light precipitation, then discretely painting higher intensities on top. The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) operates a network of long range air-traffic control radars across the western United States. Weather Pro is capable of decoding this data, too. Since a single, small radar echo can straddle a grid border, the MDR code may take more grid boxes than neccessary to define it. This makes radar echoes somewhat larger than they really are, an effect known as "blooming". Although radar operators try to reduce this, it is an inherent drawback of gridding radar echoes and may be reflected by Weather Pro. 1. RADAR SITES. Reporting locations which have contributed data to the echo chart are identified in Weather Pro (depending on the configuration setting) using a mark or an abbreviation, precisely centered on the radar site. It will appear as follows: + -- The site is reporting echoes, which have been plotted (the National Meteorological Center doesn't do THIS for you!). NE -- PPINE, Plan Position Indicator No Echoes. The radar is not detecting any echoes. NA -- PPINA, Plan Position Indicator Not Available. The radar is off, but is otherwise working fine. The radar operator may be out doing lunch. OM -- PPIOM, Plan Position Indicator Out for Maintenance. The Maytag man is probably on call. NS -- PPINS, Plan Position Indicator No Significant echoes. Echoes are very small (cover only 20% or less of the grid box) and do not exceed VIP 1. Sort of a "why bother" code. DE -- PPIDE, Plan Position Indicator Duplicate Echo. Although the site is detecting echoes, a sister radar is reporting them, so no report will be made. Used by the FAA air traffic control centers where the meteorologist sees several radar displays at once and can spot potential duplication of data. 2. ECHO INTENSITY. Echoes are evaluated on a scale of VIP 1 to 6. VIP 1 indicates light rain, while 3 usually indicates heavy rain and 6 a severe thunderstorm. These are colored appropriately on the Echo plot. I. CONFIGURATION The program's configuration values can be modified by selecting the appropriate keystroke from the main menu. This section will list only some selections that will be of interest to you if you're evaluating the program. 1. WEATHER DATA DEFAULT FILE. Indicates where the program will get data if you type WEATHER to run it without a filename. This is normally DATA.TXT, but can be modified. You may path out of the Weather Pro directory to access the datafile (e.g. C:\DATA\14JUN92.04Z). 2. PLOT ALL SURFACE STATIONS. If "no", Weather Pro will use a special process to keep stations from crowding each other on the map. The registered version has the capability to zoom, so zooming in will free up elbow room within the map, allowing for more stations to appear. If the selection is "yes", then ALL weather stations will be plotted. Note that this gives Weather Pro a license to clutter your map. 3. PLOT ALL RADAR ECHOES DURING STARTUP. Tells Weather Pro whether to auto-plot radar echoes when you execute the program. If you have a slow computer, setting this to "no" will speed things up considerably. 4. PLOT ECHO SQUARES OR BUBBLES. Bubbles are faster, but squares are more precise. Try both to see what you prefer. 5. PLOT BASEMAP ON STARTUP. Slower users may prefer to select "no". This simply determines whether a map is plotted once the program is started. 6. ALWAYS PLOT USER-DEFINED GEOGRAPHY. If "yes" is selected, Weather Pro will include customized geography patterns (highways, roads, airways, county lines, etc) on all images. 7. ALWAYS PLOT USER-DEFINED CITIES. If "yes" is selected, the program will always include cities and towns from WEATHER.CTY on the map. 8. PLOT ALSTG INSTEAD OF SLP. Tells Weather Pro whether to plot altimeter setting or sea-level pressure on the surface data plot. 9. OVERLAY BASE MAP AFTER PLOTTING RADAR. This option will force Weather Professional to overlay the base map after plotting radar echoes. If you don't like having state borders hidden, this option is for you. If the base map plots slow on your system, this option may not be for you. 10. AUTO-COMPOSITE MODE. If auto-composite mode is activated, whenever you build a weather map (from echoes, heights, surface data, etc), Weather Pro will memorize your choices. Whenever you move or zoom the map, the selected data will automatically be plotted on the new map, saving you keystrokes. To erase memorized settings, use the Replot command. The only way to disable auto-composite mode is to revert the configuration setting. Auto-composite mode is not recommended for slower computers, especially for radar echo plots. Auto-composite will not memorize winds-aloft settings or contours. J. CUSTOMIZING THE PROGRAM With a little experience with MS-DOS and a bit of spare time, you can configure Weather Pro for your own setup. Whether you run an amateur weather station, fly cross-country, or monitor weather for a company, Weather Pro's small details can be tailored to your specifications. 1. BATCH FILES. Weather Pro will allow you to use batch files to automate the entire process. You may even automate the system completely, having the computer dial up radar maps every hour, but this requires a memory-resident (TSR) time-delay program -- fortunately there are such programs available within CompuServe forums. Such a program will have to be able to invoke the batch file automatically and initiate appropriate keystrokes to quit the program. If you have a telecommunications program such as Procomm or QModem, you can write scripts which automatically log into your favorite weather database and retrieve the radar data. Then you can link the telecommunications program with Weather Pro by using a "batch" file. Batch files simulate keyboard entries at the DOS prompt, so you can use it to invoke the telecommunications program with its script, then run Weather Pro immediately. There are many scripts for Weather Pro which may be available on CompuServe in the AVSIG forum, Library 1. Unfortunately I can't act as a go-between to get them for you. If you need one, a CompuServe account is rather cheap. Here's an example of a batch file which automates Weather Pro using QModem. It's assumed that you already have created a script in QModem using their auto-script feature, and that you save data to C:\WEATHER\DATA.TXT. It's also helpful to go into C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT to make sure that a PATH command is specified to the directory GETWX.BAT resides in -- this way, you can call up the procedure from any directory. Filename: GETWX.BAT ====================== ECHO OFF C: CD \QMODEM QMODEM /S=SCRIPT.SCR C: CD \RADAR WEATHER It's not my purpose to give you a DOS tutorial, so for more information please consult your DOS User's Guide. 2. STATION LISTING. The file WEATHER.STN contains a listing of stations used by Weather Pro in locating radar and observing sites. This information is used to plot the observations and radar echoes. You can add or delete stations as you like to modify the density and coverage of reports in desired regions. Be sure to use only an ASCII editor such as MS-DOS EDIT to modify this file. The three-digit identifier is contained in columns 1-3. This MUST be in uppercase and must match the exact identifier used in the radar reports. Column 6 is normally blank. If a capital X is here, it means that a surface report will never be plotted for this station -- it is used only for upper-air or radar reports. If a capital C is here, this means that the station is Canadian and all temperatures/dewpoints will be converted from Celsius to Fahrenheit. Columns 8-9 contain the latitude of the station in degrees. Columns 10-11 contain the latitude of the station in minutes. Columns 13-15 contain the longitude of the station in degrees. Columns 16-17 contain the longitude of the station in minutes. Fill any unused numerical columns with zeroes (i.e. enter 82 degrees, 5 minutes longitude as 08205). If there is a specific station you have a preference for seeing (assuming that anti-crowding is used on the surface data plots), simply move it to the first line in the state or to the beginning of the file. Station plots are plotted on a first-in-WEATHER.STN, first- plotted basis, so if you move your station to line 1, you can rest assured it will ALWAYS get plotted. If you wish to make adjustments to a preset zoom window, you can "bogus" this file by inputting a fake weather station, determining the desired latitude and longitude, and specifying it in the configuration file. Be sure that you don't use the identifier of an existing station; QQQ would be a safe one. You may not have more than 1000 stations in this file. To make sure you aren't reaching this limit, you can use the MS-DOS editor to see if the line count on the file has exceeded 800. 3. CITIES. All user-defined cities are used only for overlaying, not for locating data. They're there simply for grins and giggles. You can modify them in WEATHER.CTY. Use any ASCII editor such as MS-DOS EDIT to modify this file. The sample file contains representative stations in the central United States. You can delete or modify this file as much as you like, but do not eliminate it, otherwise you may have problems. The leftmost three columns contain the identifier of the city to be plotted. You can do like I do -- identify airfields by their standard three-letter code, and identify towns and cities by an arbitrary two-letter system. The city identifier is located in columns 1-3. The city name is located in columns 6-29 (for your own use only). Columns 30-31 contain the latitude in degrees, and columns 33-34 contain the latitude in minutes. Columns 36-38 contain the longitude in degrees, and columns 40-41 contain the longitude in minutes. If there are any unused numerical columns, fill them with zeroes (i.e. write 79 degrees longitude as '079'). See the file itself for examples. You may NOT have more than 250 points in this database. 4. GEOGRAPHY. All geography can be modified by the user. There are two geography sets -- the North American "map" set, and the user- defined geography set, both contained within a single file. UNREGISTERED USERS do not have this file -- for them, the file WEATHER.PLX contains the geography information, and it is ciphered and cannot be altered. K. TROUBLESHOOTING Weather Pro contains many algorithms which are designed to catch human errors made by those disseminating the radar reports. While it succeeds in dodging most of them, you may find a few that slip through the cracks. So if you see an echo height of 90,000 feet or a hook echo over Idaho, you might want to browse through the raw text file and see what is happening. You can also use a true ASCII editor (such as MS-DOS EDIT) to correct any deficiencies in the data that you see. Or, of course, you can just ignore it. Q. My computer goes berserk when it runs the program. A. Do you have a VGA card? If not, enable the EGA option by appending /E to WEATHER (the startup command). This will force Weather Pro into 640 x 350 mode. Weather Pro will not run on a CGA computer. Q. The program reads the data file, but no data plots (or some of it plots strangely). What's the deal? A. Be ABSOLUTELY sure that your data source does not reformat the reports in some manner. Also check to make sure that your terminal program is in a standard configuration and does not strip characters/linefeeds or transpose character sets. If you have further trouble send me a note. Q. Weather Pro runs strangely and aborts. A. Make sure that you have all Weather Pro files residing within the same directory and that you CHANGE DIRECTORY to it before running RADAR. Weather Pro will not run if called from another directory. If this isn't the problem, remove unneeded TSR (memory resident) programs as Wx Pro requires a considerable amount of the 640K memory space normally available -- look into using a memory manager program. Q. Why do the echo squares look so jagged and crooked? A. This is how they are mapped -- you're not seeing an error! When looking at the national map, the Cartesian coordinate grid that the squares use tends to be slightly rotated from the map grid. This gives it the weird appearance. Try centering the map over the east coast, and you'll see the MDR grid much more easily. Q. Weather Pro doesn't plot any data or some plots are clearly erroneous. A. BE SURE that your data source and capture utility does not "tamper" with the content of the raw reports. Even something as simple as stripping the equal signs (end of report markers) off the ends of the observations or adding extra characters will cause problems with the program. It would be nice if the program had pure "fuzzy logic" to handle these situations, but such is not the case. Fortunately, I haven't seen any data sources yet which do this. If you do encounter problems, contact me, or write yourself a utility which will preprocess the raw data. If you have found the offending station and it is clearly not a one-time coding error, send me an exact copy of it and I will try to adjust the program to handle it. Q. My customized cities and geography doesn't plot. A. You've either not inputted the data correctly, or you're using a non-true ASCII editor. If you're in doubt, ALWAYS use the MS-DOS EDIT command. If you've already messed up your file, you will need to delete all your entries to strip out the invisible control codes and et cetera. Q. How can I send the chart to my printer? A. There are so many printer models and "printing languages" out nowadays that I decided to wait on any built-in print feature. You're much better off using a TSR (memory resident) program which you can load before running Weather Pro. When you press a certain key, such a program will dump the screen image to the printer. Try the MS-DOS GRAPHICS command (read about it in your user's manual), and if this doesn't work suitably, access one from many available on CompuServe. Q. The chart contains too much data! A. If you store, say, 1935Z data in a file, ensure that there is no 1935Z data there from another day. Weather Pro cannot tell the two reports apart, and you may get some strange looking maps. You can avoid this by setting up your telecommunications program to destroy any existing capture file before opening one with the same name. Q. Why is the "system time" printed on the chart and not the date of the data? A. Weather Pro has no way of knowing whether the data is current or historical since this information isn't contained in the file, and the file date can be ambiguous. So it can't really put a date on the chart for sure. But the computer's clock date is listed on the map to help you out in case you make printouts and need to refer to them later. Q. Tell me about the precision of Weather Pro. A. The image is only as accurate as the raw data and technical limitations of the weather radar network and of Weather Pro's interpretation scheme. However, Weather Pro uses precision in handling the data. All coordinates are transformed mathematically through the polar stereographic projection formula, so placement error is nominal and is subject to the precision of the data. Q. Are the radar echoes located accurately? A. The national MDR grid is based on the LFM-I grid, the same one used by the National Meteorological Center's Cray supercomputers. Unfortunately, I don't have their mathematical formula for translating Cartesian MDR coordinates to lat/long. I've tested some of my own formulas -- they come close but don't meet my standards of precision. Therefore, all echoes are vector-mapped from the radar site using MM as the center location without any gridbox offset. Accordingly, the vector direction is adjusted to account for the MDR-north declination across the United States. Overall, the maximum position error of all echoes relative to the real-world is subject to the limitations of the MDR grid (about 20 nautical miles), plus the deviation of vector-mapping instead of using a mathematical MDR grid (about 10 more miles). It is fairly accurate, and the method interestingly removes much of the "blockiness" from the map. Q. Is Somalia going to turn into another Vietnam? A. I thought were talking about weather here! Q. Oh -- well how do I update my copy if a new version comes along? L. UPDATING YOUR COPY I've made it easy for you to update your registered copy. Whenever I release updates to Weather Pro, I'll make them available on CompuServe in the form of a demo program. You should be able to find a copy in the AVSIG or IBMAPP forum. All you have to do is download this file and unzip it in a temporary directory. Then read the READ.ME file contained in that update for updating instructions. When you run the program, the new Weather Pro will look at the Weather Pro data files on your disk. If you have an intact version of WEATHER.PLT, which is not in the demo version, Weather Pro will recognize that you are registered and will disable its demo mode. If everything looks good, you may want to back up your directory on a disk and install from that disk if you later have trouble. The registered version documentation also contains information on updating directly from me. When you send a SASE disk mailer and a blank disk, I will update you for no charge. Since I'm not a full-time business I can't guarantee that this policy will last forever, but I'll try as long as I can. M. IN THE WORKS? Ask any Weather Pro user, and he or she will tell you that the program has had a long and successful history of improvements and enhancements. When you register, you jump on the bandwagon and get access to these features that are continuously being developed. As more features are developed, price increases are possible. So if you're already registered, you have your security blanket. One idea considered for Weather Pro includes time-lapse animation. This is very graphics-intensive and I'll probably have to obtain some machine-code routines to do this. It's going to take work. Another feature that I hope to add is automatic data-source dialing. This is something I could even use myself, but writing routines to control telecommunications ports has proven more complicated than I thought. Besides, you can imagine the complications in the different data access protocols used by the countless weather databases in existence today. The purpose of Weather Pro was to let you use data from ANY source -- automatic source dialing would be a step away from this goal. You might also expect improvements in the surface and upper air plotting. Maybe vectors and components, too, for you pilots. I'll be looking at compositing of satellite data (with zooms, moves, etc). The only question here is "will the typical user really access all this stuff"? Also being considered are enhancements to plot AIRMETS, SIGMETS, and watches and warnings. Thanks to CompuServe users Robert Kelsoe, Dick Zeitlin, and Scott Dyer for beta testing the basic version of Weather Professional. A -special- thanks to Patrick Rudolph for his extensive testing, suggestions, and time spent helping to shape this program into what it is today.