Sterling Web Site – an Introduction

As you may have already seen, the NWS Sterling web pages (http://www.erh.noaa.gov/lwx/) have changed dramatically during the past few months.  The reason for all the changes is that the National Weather Service has incorporated a new “web image” for all of its web sites across the country.  These changes provide a consistent “look and feel” to all web sites and include accessibility features for the handicapped.  Additionally, many new features have been added and more are planned in the coming months.  Here is a brief rundown on some of the changes.

Local forecast by “City, St” is a new feature where you can type in any City, St across the country (zip code works too) and get the current forecast for that area.  If you’d rather select an area from a map, start at http://www.srh.noaa.gov where you’ll get a map of the United States with each offices area of responsibility color-coded.  Links are also provided for the River Forecast Centers and the Central Weather Service Units as well.

Quick glimpse at the weather has a map of all the counties in the Sterling County Warning Area.  These maps are dynamic, in that they are updated every 6 to 8 minutes, providing the servers are working properly.  If a county is shown in any color besides white, that means there is a statement, watch or warning in effect for that county.  Clicking on any county will bring up a graphic AND text forecasts for that county for the next seven days, and any statements, watches or warnings in effect will be shown as a link as well.

Much more information is also included on the right side of the page.  Under the Current Conditions banner is the latest weather conditions at the location closest to that county.  More Local Wx link has more observations from around the area and clicking on any one of those will show all the observations for the past 24-48 hours for that location.
Under the Radar and Satellite banner are links to the current radar and satellite imagery; loops are also available on those pages.
Additional Forecasts & Information section has links to the forecast discussion, Graphical Forecast Table and more.  Those of you who are one of our cooperative weather sites and enter your daily data using the ROSA phone or call the information in to us can see your data on the Precip/Temp Summary link.  We really do use everything you send us.  Any other links under this section are geared toward the county you clicked on.  Counties along the Bay will have the marine forecast link while those in the mountains will have a link to the Mountains/Skyline Drive forecast. 

Another product, not so new, is our Graphical Forecast Table, example shown below.  Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I won’t explain everything on it but many very favorable comments have been sent to us about it.

  The Experimental Gridded Forecast is another way of showing the forecast for our County Warning Area (CWA) or our area of forecast responsibility.  This section is a work in progress and may not always work properly so use with caution.  Every possible attempt is made to keep the information current. What it will show is a graphical representation of the latest forecast temperatures for the current forecast period.  Clicking on the link will bring up a map that looks like something like this.

If you use Internet Explorer as your browser, then you can place your mouse arrow on any of the links on the left side table and the map on the right will display those values.  In this example, the image on the right shows the forecast Maximum temperature for Tuesday Sept 10^th.  Other parameters will also show up in a map using the color scale shown immediately above the map. 

Continuing on with the main page shows several thumbnail images of the Radar, Satellite and Forecast map.  Clicking on any of these images will bring up a full screen view of the most recent image you click on.  Below the forecast map image is a link named “more…”.  Clicking that will bring up the main page of the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (HPC) that has forecast maps for 12, 24, 36 and 48 hours and day 3, 4, 5, 6 forecasts.  There are links to the Day 1 QPF, Day 2 QPF and Day 3 QPF.  QPF stands for Quantitative Precipitation Forecast so what you can visually see the forecast precipitation amounts for the next 3 days.  With the current drought situation, those may be helpful for everyone to keep an eye on.  

Below the Radar and Satellite Images section is what I’ll have to call, for the lack of a better name, the potpourri area.  This would be the area where each office can put in any information that is relevant to that particular office.  Besides the link to the Sterling Reporter, there are links to the April 28 tornado event, Skywarn classes and possibly 3 of the more important links on the entire web site. 
The Public Information Statement is a link to the latest statement we issued.  We issue these when we feel the information is relevant to the general area.  Topics may include, How hot it has been, How much rain fell from a storm over the area, How dry it’s been, and so on.

Another very high profile product is the Drought/Water Supply Statement.  This product is issued on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month.  This product consists of a narrative statement and the latest rainfall amounts by county for the 46 counties in our CWA.  Very informative!

The Local Storm Report is another very informative product that is issued to relay reports of damage from a storm that affects the CWA.  If we, for example, issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for several counties, this is where we will post damage reports that we receive.

And now here is an explanation of the text links on our left side menu.

The top item is “Local forecast by “City, St” or zip code”.  In the window provided, you can enter any location in the country and the complete 7 day forecast for that location will open. Immediately below that are the Current Hazards.  Those links will bring up any active Watches or Warnings for the state selected.  The Hazardous Outlook is a product we issue daily indicating the likelihood of significant weather for the next 7 days with the main emphasis on day one.
Current Conditions is the next main section.  
The Observations link will bring up a page with all of the locations in our area that we have current conditions for.  Satellite Images will bring up links to a variety of different images available from the National Weather Service (NWS).  
The Hydrology link brings up virtually anything to do with the rivers on our area.  Latest river levels, stage forecasts, flood and flash flood info is there as well as links to the USGS gauges and much more.  
The newest link is the Rivers & Lakes AHPS that was developed by the River Forecast Center in State College , PA.   It is an interactive map that allows you to click on any gauge and see the levels for the past 48 hours in a graphical format as well as all of the historical information we have on that gauge.  This is extremely informative, especially for those folks living near the rivers.   
The River Levels link goes to the NWS Hydrologic main page that has river information on all rivers in the United States .  
The Air Quality Index is something we added after many people thought that we took the samples and determined the air quality.  The NWS never has done this but those folks with allergies or other medical conditions thought we should have the information so we made it available.  
Something else the NWS never did but, again, people thought we did is to do Road Conditions.  This will take you to the Department of Transportations Federal Highway Administration page that has links to road conditions across the country.

The Radar Imagery has links to the local radar, including loops and National data.

Under the Forecasts area is a lot of information.  The Text link brings up a page where you can see the forecasts for Washington and Baltimore, get the Sun Rise/Set from the Naval Observatory, get the forecast for Selected Cities around the country, the Mountain/Skyline drive forecast, the 6-10 day outlook, monthly and seasonal outlooks, the forecast discussion and a list of all the acronyms and abbreviations that we use in some of our products.  
The Aviation link goes to the NWS Aviation center in Kansas City that has all of the information critical to pilots.  The Marine link brings up our local marine page with links to any and all information needed by boaters/mariners from Maine to Florida .  There are several links for either the text forecast and graphic forecasts as well as tide data and much more.  One can also find the radio broadcast information for mariners here as well.  
The NWS Marine Page has much of the information discussed above and some links that we don’t have.

The Discussion link is the people who can’t get enough of the weather and want to read our thoughts on the latest forecast packages.

Our Fire Weather page relates to almost anything to do with forestry management and prescribed burns…

mainly for use by the Forestry Service.

The UV Index points to the forecast index for tomorrow for a large number of cities across the country.

Tropical goes to the Hurricane Center and is mainly for hurricanes and tropical storm information.

The Models page points to the NWS and US Navy pages for all types of model data.

Maps goes to the NWS map section that has a wide variety of current and forecast maps.  

Climate is an area that few people seem to understand.  
The Past Weather Data link is to our climate page that has weather data for 7 locations, by day, for up to 3 years ago.  How much rain, snow fell on a particular day, how hot or cold it was on this day, etc can be found here.  It also has Heating and Cooling degree day data and more. 
 The NWS Climate Links goes to the main NWS page on Climate.

Storm Reports is a very well documented area that everyone should be aware of.  While we archive data for 7 locations under the Past Weather Data link, above, the Storm Reports section offers a descriptive narrative of significant/severe weather that affected any portion of our forecast area for any given month.  These reports are compiled from newspaper clippings, storm reports from spotters and emergency managers throughout the region.  If a hail storm damaged your house on a certain day, then we probably have it documented, if we received the information.  This arranged by month so you’ll need to know which month you need.  The reports begin on the first day and go through the end of the month and include events in Maryland , Virginia , Eastern West Virginia and the District.  Go ahead and read one, you’ll be amazed at the amount of information packed into these reports.

Climate Prediction points to the Climate Prediction Center that talks about El Nino, monthly and seasonal outlooks and much more.

The Drought link is to our drought page, which nobody will likely look at until the next time it stops raining or snowing.

And finally, the Sun Rise/Set tables for some cities around the area.  I also have a link to the US Naval Observatory where one can get solar and lunar data for anywhere.

National Centers.  These links point to the NWS Central offices for those links shown.

Weather Safety  Is your community Stormready?  Find out what it all means here.  Winter Safety and Heat Safety deal with precautions you should take or be aware of during the winter and summer.

Safety/Preparedness  No, we don’t tell you to go out and buy rolls of duct tape or sheets of plastic.  This deals with our Skywarn spotter program, upcoming classes that anyone can attend.  Go here to find out more about the Skywarn program and what it’s for.   Weather Radio is chock full of information about NOAA weather radio and why you should have one on your home or business.  It could save your life.

Lightning Safety goes into a lot of detail about lightning strikes and precautions you should know when lightning threatens you.

Wind Chill Chart is the newest wind chill chart that shows how fast you can be affected by wind and temperature.

Education/Outreach  If you’d like to set up a tour of our office for your group, you’ll need to read this as there are security precautions in effect.

NOAA Site goes to the NOAA education page with tons of useful information.  
The Virtual Tour is a look at our office without actually coming out here.

Definitions explains what a Watch or Warning is and what they mean.

Our Classroom link is to the weather classroom that was put together by one of our forecasters and is geared toward students and teachers.

S.W.E.P.  is the Severe Weather Emergency Plan and is geared toward preparing schools for severe weather events.

Archives  The Archives link shows some maps and reports done by this office for events that were significant.  It is not all inclusive, just a page to list some information.  The Historic Events is more comprehensive in that it covers tornado outbreaks, major snowstorms, and weather during presidential inaugurations.

Snow event maps is a listing of the snow maps that were put together by the Warning Coordination Meteorologist.

Inaugurations details some of the weather conditions that have happened during presidential inaugurations.

Sept 24 tornado  - should be self explanatory.

Miscellaneous  Weather Pictures is a page we set up to show some of the weather pictures that people have sent us.  If you have an interesting picture and would like us to include it, read the Submit Pictures link to understand our requirements.

More New Links cover a wide range of topics including what it takes to become a meteorologist.

Contact Us  Links on how to communicate with members of this office.

I realize that some of the text links were sort of glossed over but space is limited in the newsletter.  By all means, please use the links as much as you can as there is quite likely everything you ever wanted to know about weather in them. 

Many many people in the office have spent a great deal of time compiling all of the information contained in the web pages and would like to think that you, the public, are using this information and find what you need easily.

Jim DeCarufel