User Guide - Macintosh http://earthstorm.ocs.ou.edu WeatherScope WeatherScope Application Information: WeatherScope is a stand-alone application that makes viewing weather data easier. To run WeatherScope, Mac OS X version 10.3.7, a minimum of 512MB of RAM, and an accelerated graphics card with 32MB of VRAM are required. WeatherScope is distributed freely for noncommercial and educational use and can be used on both Apple Macintosh and Windows operating systems. How do I Download WeatherScope? To download the application, go to http://earthstorm.ocs.ou.edu, select Data, Software, Download, or go to http://www. ocs.ou.edu/software. There will be three options: WeatherBuddy, WeatherScope, and WxScope Plugin. You will want to choose WeatherScope. There are two options under the application: Macintosh or Windows. Choose Macintosh to download the application. The installation wizard will automatically save to your desktop. Go to your desktop and double click on the icon that says WeatherScope- x.x.x.pkg. Several dialog messages will appear. The fi rst message will inform you that you are about to install the application. The next message tells you about computer system requirements in order to download the application. The following message is the Software License Agreement. It is strongly suggested that you read this agreement. If you agree, click Agree. If you do not agree, click Disagree and the software will not be installed onto your computer. The next message asks you to select a destination drive (usually your hard drive). The setup will run and install the software on your computer. You may then press Close. You are now ready to view Oklahoma Mesonet, NEXRAD radar data, and National Weather Service data on your computer! How do I Use WeatherScope? There are several shortcuts to make using WeatherScope easier. To Zoom In, click the mouse button on the map. To Zoom Out, hold the Option key and click with the mouse. To move the map, hold the Apple key and drag with the mouse. When WeatherScope is fi rst opened, you are provided with a blank map of Oklahoma. To add another state to the map, choose Product, New, Shape. http://earthstorm.ocs.ou.edu Then choose a state from the Region pull-down menu. While in this dialog box, you can choose a Feature, such as county borders. Then click OK. To add a radar to a map, choose Product, New, Radar. There are many radars to choose from, so to narrow your choices, there is a Filter feature. Type in a few letters of the site you are interested in (e.g., MO for Missouri radars) and the list will be limited to radars with those letters in their name. Then choose your desired radar site. Below that is a list of Radar Products. Base Reflectivity I is the most used radar product. Once all options are selected, click OK. To add National Weather Service Surface Observations to a map, click Product, New, Observation. A dialog box will appear. Choose NWS Surface Observations from Data Set. There is a long list of variables, and you can enter a few letters of a variable in the Filter to narrow down the list. If you choose Air Temperature, make sure to check the Units. You can choose from degrees Celsius, degrees Fahrenheit, or Kelvin. You can also choose the color of the label, as well as the position relative to the weather station. To animate the data or select a different date or time, double click on the Date and Time stamp at the top of the legend. A dialog box will appear and you will be able to select the date and time you wish to animate. You can then choose how many minutes, hours, or days to loop through, whether you want it before or after the selected date, and if you want it to sync to a specific data set or step by a certain time frame. To animate the data, go to Window, Show Animator. A box will appear with buttons much like those on a VCR. Press the Play button (center button on the animator box) to animate the data. There is a bar on the bottom of the animator box that will allow you to choose how fast or slow the animation loops. You can turn animation on and off from the Legend by clicking the arrow icon beneath the date and time stamp. The legend offers opportunity for extensive interaction with the map. You can put many items on a map and still move it around for your best use. Each item in the legend is considered a layer. For instance, if you have a gradient, a county border map, and Oklahoma Mesonet air temperature observations on one map, there are three layers on the map. If the gradient is the top layer, you will not be able to see anything beneath it because the gradient is not translucent by default. To move the gradient layer, select the layer and drag it with the http://earthstorm.ocs.ou.edu mouse to the bottom of the list in the legend. Layers can be rearranged in any order in the legend. To delete a layer, click on it once in the legend and tap the delete key. Each layer has additional information that can be viewed. To see the Inspector, choose Show Inspector from the Window Menu. The Inspector shows the date and time of the data, as well as the specific latitude and longitude of the cursor’s position. This “cursor tracking” also will show the exact data of the cursor location. For instance, if the cursor is on a dew point gradient, the Inspector will show the exact dew point temperature at the cursor’s location. You may want to see a map without a particular layer, but you may not want to delete that layer. Choose the layer you wish to hide and press the Control key and click with the mouse. A dialog box will appear and the first option will be Hide. Click on Hide and the layer will no longer be shown on the map. In the legend, the layer will be translucent. If you wish to show the layer again, choose it in the legend, press the Control key and click with the mouse. Click on Show in the dialog box, and the parameter will once again be visible. To change the Properties of a layer, double click with the mouse on a selected layer. The Properties dialog box will appear. Here you can change any of the properties of the layer, including the data set. If you like the way your map looks and think you would use your chosen setup on a regular basis, choose File, Save Default. This option saves your chosen map settings so that every time you open WeatherScope in the future, these map settings will be used. Track Real Time gives you the option to either get data in real time or to turn off the feature and look at archived data. To turn Track Real Time on or off, go to Map, Track Real Time (or Stop Tracking Real Time). You can also turn this feature on and off from the Legend. Below the date and time stamp, click on the clock icon. To archive data, go to Map, Start Archiving, or click on the file icon below the date and time stamp. When archiving data, WeatherScope will save the files to your hard drive. Oklahoma Mesonet data is available back to 1994, so archiving is not necessary. However, radar data and other data types are available online for a limited time so archiving is a good idea if you wish to keep the data for future use. You can also make graphs with WeatherScope. To create a graph, go to File, New Graph. The graphs only graph Oklahoma Mesonet data and the time covers a 24-hour period. The legend works the same as in the map. For more information, please contact the Oklahoma Climatological Survey at (405) 325-2541 or e-mail at [email protected]. http://earthstorm.ocs.ou.edu WeatherScope Glossary The following are definitions for each of the product types in WeatherScope. Barb - indicates the direction and speed of wind. The barb is read from tail to tip, or the direction the wind is coming from. The sticks on the tail represent wind speed. A short stick represents 5 knots, a long stick represents 10 knots, and a flag represents 50 knots. Contour - a line on a map that joins points of equal amounts (e.g., temperature, wind speed, dew point) Gradient - color-filled map showing a rate of change of some variables across a given area Grid Lines - plots latitude and longitude lines on a map Observation - specific variable, such as temperature, wind direction and speed, of a given weather station Radar - plots radar data from a given radar site Shape - plots various shapes, including states, county borders, and highways, on a map Symbol - plots a symbol for a given weather station on a map Vector - a quantity, such as wind, completely specified by a magnitude and direction Author: Loren Gmachl - March 2005.