F5Data

Internet Weather Web Sites
1

F5Data is now officially open to the public.

On http://www.f5data.com/ you will find:

  • Forecast Soundings (2000 grid points - 48 states - NAM/ETA out to 84 hrs & RUC out to 12 hrs)
  • Forecast Maps (130 products - most unique set online… see list of map types on web site)
  • Sortable current conditions database
  • Surface maps that update every 5 minutes (with SPECIs of course)
  • Bunch of other stuff.

There are all kinds of screen shots and Flash demonstrations on the web site. I’d encourage you to check it out to really get a feel of what we’re doing.

I think our biggest advantage are the forecast soundings we provide. Every forecast hour in Skew-T and textual form on a very tight grid for the entire U.S. Not just tornado alley. There are 60 points in MN alone.

Also our massive list of contoured map parameters is the most comprehensive on the 'net. I’m sure there will be a lot of calculated variables you’ve never heard of before. The entire list can be found on the site.

http://www.f5data.com/

Andy

2

Great. Hope this will be available in Europe also. 8)

3

I don’t think something like this is possible in Europe. A lot of (all?) WX data in the US is free, but the Eu Met Offices want to charge you huge sums of money to get at the equivalent data.

4

This F5Data site isn’t free either. I wonder where they get their data from to create all those fancy maps and graphs.

5

Don’t you think they could be paying for data? Is everything available for free from the NOAA/NWS for any purpose?

6

From what I can find, all weather data via the internet is indeed free from NOAA/NWS. Of course, they are a .gov site… #-o

7

nope. The national climate data center charges for data. And it is the only legally permissible weather evidence in court for example. 8O

8

I hadn’t heard of these guys before now, but went to their site and checked where they get their data from…some sites I did not recognize, but the others, all free sources of weather data that I could go to directly and bypass the climate center completely.

9

Sorry I’m so slow on this thread… been very busy lately.

The data we obtain is freely accessible as is all government data in the U.S. Our site isn’t free because we do a lot of ‘work’ on the data before it gets to the end user.

Raw computer model data doesn’t give you much. It’s in a binary format and all you get (Basically) is the wind, temperature and moisture information through a vertical column of air. The rest of the data that we look at on a normal basis has to be calculated. What we do is go one step further and calculate ‘a lot’ of variables. The UCAR web site for example makes about 20 different types of maps. We make 130 different types. The only difference is that we chose to do the math on the rest of those variables.

So in doing such we need fast computers (several of them) to do all the calculations, and then we need even more servers to generate all of the graphics for that data. It’s a fun but complicated process… and that’s why we charge.

If we did any European data we would have to pay for the data, and our price would likely go up… at least a tinge to cover our costs. This is actually a possibility in the future. If it’s hard to get good weather data in Europe, there could be a good market for someone to process the data and create those graphics for the public.