News

via HACKADAY: Better Tornado Warnings with Polygons and Pi

Everyone pays close attention to the weather, but for those who live where tornadoes are prevalent, watching the sky can be a matter of life and death. When the difference between making it to a shelter or getting caught in the open can be a matter of seconds, it might make sense to build an internet enabled Raspberry Pi weather alert system.

We know what you’re thinking – why not just buy an off-the-shelf weather alert radio with Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) reporting, or just rely on a smartphone app? As [Jim Scarborough] explains, living in the heart of Tornado Alley and having had a brush with tragedy as a kid teaches you not to be complacent with severe weather. He found a problem with the SAME system: lack of locational granularity below the county level, leading to a tendency to over-warn during tornado season. [Jim]’s build seeks to improve SAME by integrating National Weather Service polygon warnings, which define an area likely to see a severe weather event as a collection of geographic vertices rather than a political unit. He’s using a Raspberry Pi NOAA weather radio receiver with SAME decoding, and while details are sparse and the project is ongoing, the idea seems to be to use the Pi to scrape the NWS site for polygon data once a county-level warning is issued.

Alert

WATCH ALERT: Freeze Watch issued November 12 at 10:10AM CST until November 13 at 8:00AM CST by NWS

…SUBFREEZING TEMPERATURES LATE TONIGHT THROUGH MID MORNING SUNDAY ACROSS THE EASTERN TENNESSEE VALLEY AND THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS… .A LARGE AREA OF HIGH PRESSURE OVER THE MIDWEST AND OHIO VALLEY WILL SETTLE OVER THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES TONIGHT… PRODUCING CLEAR SKIES AND CALM WINDS. THESE CONDITIONS WILL ALLOW

from Current Watches, Warnings and Advisories for Knox (TNC093) Tennessee Issued by the National Weather Service http://ift.tt/2fH7424
via IFTTT

Alert

WATCH ALERT: Freeze Watch issued November 12 at 2:04AM CST until November 13 at 8:00AM CST by NWS

…SUBFREEZING TEMPERATURES LATE TONIGHT THROUGH MID MORNING SUNDAY ACROSS THE EASTERN TENNESSEE VALLEY AND THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS… .A LARGE AREA OF HIGH PRESSURE OVER THE MIDWEST AND OHIO VALLEY WILL SETTLE OVER THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES TONIGHT…PRODUCING CLEAR SKIES AND CALM WINDS. THESE CONDITIONS WILL ALLOW

from Current Watches, Warnings and Advisories for Knox (TNC093) Tennessee Issued by the National Weather Service http://ift.tt/2f1YtG4
via IFTTT

Alert

WATCH ALERT: Freeze Watch issued November 11 at 8:35PM CST until November 13 at 8:00AM CST by NWS

…BELOW FREEZING TEMPERATURES SATURDAY NIGHT THROUGH MID MORNING SUNDAY ACROSS EAST TENNESSEE…SOUTHWEST VIRGINA AND SOUTHWEST NORTH CAROLINA… .A LARGE AREA OF HIGH PRESSURE OVER THE MIDWEST AND OHIO VALLEY WILL SETTLE OVER THE SOUTHEAST STATES SATURDAY NIGHT PRODUCING CLEAR SKIES AND CALM WINDS. THESE CONDITIONS WILL ALLOW

from Current Watches, Warnings and Advisories for Knox (TNC093) Tennessee Issued by the National Weather Service http://ift.tt/2eq17ZX
via IFTTT