The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) with Aimee Weber Studio just unrolled a sneak preview of their educational project in Second Life (due to open in mid November). This appetizer of things to come features the three dimensional visualization of live national weather (now on display at the Science Center).
The system works by way of dozens of scripted reporting stations dotted all over a map of the United States. These stations retrieve METAR data from NOAA every eight minutes which they then decode and render into models of the appropriate weather phenomenon for the area. All sorts of cloud cover and precipitation models are available as well as special weather conditions such as thunderstorms and tornadoes. Temperature is represented by warmer and cooler shades of color. This 3D composite is great for giving visitors a visceral feel for the weather around them.
Anecdotally, while I was working on the partially completed map, I watched a storm system slowly crawl up the east coast over the course of a day. At one point in the evening it began to rain on the map in the New York City area (that's where I live). Just as I was about to take a closer look, rain started pelting my window!
Now, given the 8 minute interval between updates along with the variation in weather for any given reporting zone, this kind of predictive resolution isn't always going to happen. But what a great start for a project that demonstrates Second Life as a powerful visualization tool for real-time data.
21. While this is certainly a neat gee-whiz thing, it certainly isn't critical to NOAA's science mission and I wonder if this is an optimal use of NOAA's resources? This seems like a questionable use of the taxpayers money with recent announcements that they're cutting critical instruments (such as the HES) off of our future weather satellite systems due to budget issues with NPOESS and GOES-R.
Posted at 3:31PM on Nov 3rd 2006 by Mat