-October 31, 2006: The weather news will be compressed into a weekly summary issued every Sunday due to time constraints and the ongoing site construction. Special weather events will be posted as they occur.
-October 30, 2006: The snowstorm dumped about 2 inches of snow up in Grand Forks this afternoon. Photos will be up in the coming days. I also shot some video that might be up sometime soon.
-October 29, 2006 UPDATE: A winter storm watch is in effect for NW MN and northern ND until Tuesday morning. Click here for the warning text.
-October 29, 2006: Very nice weather in Grand Forks this weekend. Tonight looked hopeful for northern lights but it was a false alarm.
-October 29, 2006: The damage and flowers photo galleries have been added and the website has undergone some slight tweaks.
-October 28, 2006: The news page has been finalized and the homepage has had some slight tweaking. The outline for Upper Midwest Weather is up as well.
-October 27, 2006: A sad farewell to Craig Edwards, head meteorologist at the NWS WFO at Minneapolis, who retires today after serving this office for 15 years. Best wishes on retirement. Star Tribune Article
-October 27, 2006:
Northland Weather Central Website Expansion Report
http://www.weatherbum.com
Prepared on: October 27, 2006
Prepared by: Kevin Skow
-Current Progress Report:
Work on redeveloping Northland Weather Central began on September 18, 2006. The old website structure was completely removed and the new site was built from the ground up using knowledge gained from operating the Lair of the Weatherbum (NWC) for the previous 6 months. The foundations of the original site, such as a photo and video gallery, weather centers, and weather links were retained and enhanced. Additional features were added such as a weather monitoring center, storm chasing page, and a weather information page.The website has made great and unprecedented strides over the past month but remains far from completion. Here is a summary of the changes made to each respective page of the site.
-Homepage: The homepage was slimed down and streamlined for the most part. The NWS weather charts and radars were removed and will eventually reappear in the Live Midwest Weather. Photo and Video of the week were added.
-About Me: This page tells a brief summary of me and my site.
-Latest News: The news section was also slimmed down by categorizing the news items by month. An RSS feed was introduced on October 24 hosted by RapidFeeds.
-Live Midwest Weather: A new page to the site that has only had a flash title designed for it so far.
-Storm Chasing: The storm chasing page was created in early October to facilitate my growing number of storm chasing stories and information. The page is now home to my Chase Logs and Storm Center.
-Photographs: The original, crude photograph page was replaced by a much more organized and easier to read page. The gallery pages are specially designed to for photographs. Only 15 galleries have been released so far. A flash banner also replaced the original panoramic photograph.
-Videos: The original weather videos page was completely removed in favor of a new page that hosted all of my videos. I located the file hosting site MediaMax and created two accounts to host a primary and backup place for my weather videos. All of my videos have since been uploaded and are playable in WMP.
-Weather Info: The original weather info section was created several months into the website’s life and contained little to no info by September. The page has since been expanded to include Archived Weather Centers, Guidelines for Storm Chasing, How to Photograph Lightning, Unique Weather, and Weather Software Downloads. Only the Archived Center’s sub-page has been created so far.
-Weather Links: No change to page (other than addition of logo).
-Contact Me: No change to page (other than addition of logo).
-Future Revisions: Here are the TENTATIVE additions and expansions to the website per page.
Homepage:
-Redesign main banner into a flash banner
-Add disclaimers for weather material
-Add a weather center/storm chasing prob link
-Add text for photo/video of the week
-Add RSS link for news columns
-Possibly add a custom search engine.
About Me:
-No changes expected.
Latest News:
-Split the current news feed into two separate feeds, one for weather events and the other for website news
-Create RSS feeds for the weather news
-Streamline current RSS feed.
Live Midwest Weather:
-Current Conditions:
Several regional METAR images (and backup links)
SKEW-T Log-P Images and Report
Links Current Surface and Height Maps (and backup links)
-Radar:
Provide visual and backup links to all Midwest radars and loops (base reflectivity and velocity)
Regional reflectivity images and loops Profiler Data
-Satellite Imagery:
Regional and Full Visible Imagery
Regional and Full Infrared
Enhanced Infrared Imagery Regional
Full Water Vapor Imagery
-Computer Model Forecasts:
RUC (0-12h) all variables
ETA (0-36h) all variables
GFS (0-84h) all variables
-Space Weather: KP Index
KP Map
Sun Spot Map
Solar Forecast
-Link to Storm Center on the Top of Page
Storm Chasing:
-Add MN NOAA weather radio charts-Link to Storm Chasing Guidelines
-Create Chase Logs 2007
Photographs:
-Continue addition of galleries to the site (26 remaining)
Videos:
-Minor changes possible (change types unknown)
Weather Info:
-Archived Weather Centers:
No additional expansion expected
-Guidelines for Storm Chasing:
A list of what I do to prepare for chases
-How to Photograph Lightning:
A pictorial and written report on my lightning photography styles
-Unique Weather:
Reports
Weather Images/Maps
Malfunctioning Weather Equipment
-Weather Software Downloads:
Weather Watcher
ForecastFox Enhanced
WeatherScope
Severe Weather Report Plotter (NCDC)
IDV 2.0
GEMPACK
BUFKIT
McIDAS-X
Weather Links:
-Possibly add in live severe weather links
Contact Me:
-No changes expected
Please note that these changes will not occur in any order and may change due to certain circumstances. The scheduled deadline for the site to be 100 percent up and running is MARCH 23, 2007 (the site’s one year anniversary).
-October 26, 2006: Enjoying a nice heat wave in Grand Forks the latter half of this week but temps should fall off by the end of the weekend.
-October 25, 2006: The moon and mammatus photo galleries have been updated.
-October 24, 2006: After a few months of messing around with RSS stuff, I finally have an RSS feed set up for the news section of the website! I will announce new additions to the site via the News Section and RSS feed. Click the RSS button above to get the code for your RSS reader.
-October 20, 2006: New flash animations have been added to the Live Midwest Weather and Photographs page. Mature Storm Profiles photo gallery is now online. The outline for the Weather Info section is up.
-October 17, 2006: The green skies and shelf cloud photo galleries have been added.
-October 15, 2006: The sunrises photo gallery has been added. New photos to be added to the cirrus cloud photo gallery shortly after a great display today.
-October 14, 2006: The 2005 and 2006 video pages have been updated and streamlined. The Photo of the Week has been changed. The moon and stars/planets photo gallerys have been added.
-October 11, 2006: After eight months, the site has been officially named Northland Weather Central as opposed to The Lair of the Weatherbum. The mammatus cloud page has been added. Logo created for the site.
-October 8, 2006: The funnel cloud photo page has been added.
-October 5, 2006: The site continues to progress onward. Today I added lightning photos to the photographs page and created the storm chasing page. For those of you who were wondering where Storm Center and Chase Logs went, they are now on this page. There are still many parts of the site that remain under redevelopment, including: Live Midwest Weather, Weather Info, and most of the Photographs page. I will redesign a more user friendly interface for the video page in the near future. Feel free to make any suggestions for the site.
