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Dark Sky Radar Removed

Well, the Dark Sky radar widget on the home page has finally gone… dark. As part of Apple’s buyout of Dark Sky all their web maps have been disabled. I’m thinking it happened the 1st of the year (not exactly sure, though).

As such, I have removed that feature from the City (home) page.

The good news is that we have a fully-functioning Maps page with a large, multi-functional, interactive map provided courtesy of Windy. You can view up to the last 12 hours of radar history to see the progression of any precipitation.

The Great Pre-Christmas Blizzard of ’22

The pre-Christmas winter weather event began with two days of moderate snow & relatively calm winds (12/21-22). We were under a “Winter Weather Advisory” during the front side of the area of low pressure. Once the center of the low passed to our south, winds flipped to the northwest, and the blizzard warning began (1 AM 12/23) which lasted until 1 AM 12/25.

While our maximum wind gust of 38 mph on 12/23 was nowhere near a record for our station, that day ended as the windiest day in station history (7.5 years in service) based on sustained winds. The following day was our 4th windiest.

Continue reading “The Great Pre-Christmas Blizzard of ’22”

Spoiler: Christmas Will Be White & Windy

Updated: Tuesday 12/20/22 11:25 AM

Expect high winds & significant snowfall in the days leading up to Christmas (Fri/Sat).

It’s still too early to discuss exact amounts of snow or top wind speeds. Have the shovels, snowblowers and/or generators ready though.

Decent snowfall likely late Wednesday & throughout Thursday before main event on Fri/Sat.

As of 11:25 AM Tuesday, max winds should occur Friday afternoon thru early Saturday morning. If power should fail, buildings without a backup source of power or heat will cool quickly as temperatures slide into the teens or colder.

Continue reading “Spoiler: Christmas Will Be White & Windy”

NEW! Dual Forecast Display: Hourly + Daily

The City page (home page) now features concurrent hourly & daily graphical forecasts. Previously, you had to select one or the other. We thought it would be helpful to see all that information in a glance rather than forcing visitors to make a choice.

For what it’s worth, your site operators — my wife and I — think this is a big improvement.

For those who don’t enjoy the change, however, you can visit page settings (gear icon in upper right of home page) and select which forecast, if any, you wish to see. You’ll find those options under the heading “Graphical Forecast”. Your preference will be saved as a cookie stored on your device for future visits.

PRO TIP: Since all horizontal scroll bars have been removed (because… ugly!) from the graphical forecast, those who are using a keyboard and mouse only (not a laptop trackpad or mobile device) can see additional forecast icons by clicking on the forecast you wish to scroll and using the right and left arrows on the keyboard. Those on mobile computing devices can continue using the screen (phones/tablets) or trackpad (Macs confirmed; others?) to scroll forecast icons as before. You will find up to 24 icons in the hourly forecast and 13 icons in the daily forecast.

Maps page bugs… squashed!

Previously when scrolling the maps page it would sometimes refresh the “Interactive Radar” map.

Also, on smaller viewports (like phones), the map was zoomed in too far. It was difficult to tell if precipitation was nearby but out of view.

Pinching the map to zoom in or out was also difficult and would lead to unwanted refreshes.

I believe all those unwanted behaviors are gone now. In addition, I have made the default zoom level of the map just a bit less.

The map will only change size (& refresh) when you change your device’s orientation (to portrait or landscape). Otherwise, it will remain whatever size it was when you first loaded the page.

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