FAQ for MesoWest Surface Weather Maps

• Q: When I choose the network to be SNOTEL, no observations are displayed?
• A: Since the most recent SNOTEL observations may be more than 1 hour old, click on the Time Options near the lower left of the lefthand menu bar and change the Reports in last: option to be 3 hours or longer.

• Q: The plotting convention for wind barbs doesn't seem right. What do the wind barbs mean?
• A: A full barb represents 5 m/s (or 10 kts); a half barb represents 2.5 m/s (or 5 kts). That keeps the barbs roughly the same no matter which units are selected and helps to provide more detail on wind features when metric units are used.

• Q:How do I grab, save, or print an image for other use?
• A: Currently, there are no options to save an image directly. We are currently looking to find an easy way to do this. However, if you take a "ScreenShot" (or a "Print Screen"), it will save your current Desktop image, and your MesoWest Surface Weather Maps image will be saved.

• Q:I just want to see what the weather is now and maybe look to see what it was a year ago. How do I do that?
• A: These displays provide access in a convenient and visually intuitive way to current and retrospective surface weather data stored in the MesoWest database. The most recent observations ending at a specific time are displayed. A single query to the MesoWest database collects all the observations within a user defined region for a number of parameters (temperature, wind, relative humidity, etc.). The user may "remember" a favorite configuration of location, units and data type. A tabular listing allows users to search for particular stations or to sort by location or weather condition (coldest temperatures, highest winds, etc.). Mouseovers and pop up boxes provide access to additional data as well as estimates of observation quality.

• Q: How come I can't find the tabular listings? Have they been removed?
  
• A: All of the tabular displays, including the Current Weather Summary that was the default display, are still available. Use the pull down menus in the top red bar to select a particular tabular display such as "Current Weather Summary" under the "Product" and then click "Go".
  
  
• Q: I know there should be more stations appearing on the map. Does the map interface omit stations?
  
• A: Yes. At the outset, the map defaults to RAWS and NWS stations only to provide a fast response. In order to view all stations available, select the "All Networks" settings option.
  
  
• Q: I've selected "All Networks" for a region, but some stations are still not showing. What's up?
  
• A: The map defaults to stations that have reported within the past hour to provide a fast response for most applications. Some stations do not report hourly, so their data are not always displayed. Under the "Reports within last" menu setting, select a longer time interval. Remember to check the valid time of the observation by rolling over or clicking on the station.
  
  
• Q: The data looks wacky, but the quality check says it is "ok"? What is going on?
• A: The quality checking is to catch really bad observations as the data are received. It is a pretty crude approach focused on temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and pressure. Precipitation amounts can be really tough to quality check in real time, so we don't provide QC information on precipitation data at this time.
  
  
• Q: The "Remember Settings" option doesn't seem to do anything for me. Can you please fix that???"
• A: Take a look at the url shown for the web page. If there is any text beyond mesomap.cgi (that is, after the question mark), erase it, and hit return or the enter key on your computer. In order to allow people to dive into the map displays from the top menu pages, we have to specify a default region and default setting for the type of networks to display. Once you have a favorite setting that you want to remember, then that default information conflicts with the remembered settings. We'll be working on a cleaner solution.
  
  
• Q: What about showing precipitation on the map?
• A: We're working on these and other enhancements. Stay tuned.

Comments and suggestions to improve MesoWest displays and access to data are encouraged and can be sent to meteo-mesowest@lists.utah.edu.