KATC StormTeam 3 Weather BLOG

If you have been following our 600pm newscasts over the last few days I have been showing you how to get the latest weather information into a Google Earth environment.  Tonight’s link is to Guiweather.com.  I think this is far and the best site available that not only provides radar and warning data, but also provides nearly live world-wide lightning data.  For us that’s real important since we can see up to 100 days per year with active thunderstorms in Acadiana.  In addition, you can loop lightning data over a user-defined time period, so it not only looks cool, but is quite informative.  I also love the way this site provides buoy and ship data offshore, and when it comes to tropical season, this site provides the latest hurricane model data, hurricane forecast tracks and Hurricane Hunter Recon data.   In addition, you can also display current conditions nationwide and get the latest FAA Airport delays.  Remember not to load too many items in your Google Earth because it can bring the system down to a crawl.  Once you load a new product in, it’s a good idea to toggle it off, especially before you download the next data product.  If all of the information we have provided over the last few days is not enough to satiate your thirst for more weather data, try doing a google search for whatever you’re interested in putting into the earth and throw in a “kmz” or “kml” in the query which are the file extensions that work with Google Earth.  I would though practice safe surfing and downloading, meaning make sure your antivirus and antispyware are up to date.  I haven’t heard of any malicious code being transmitted in kmz/kml file extensions, but the more popular this stuff becomes, the more likely there will be bad folks out there attaching malware.  If you do come across an interesting mash-up that you would like to share with me or our viewers, let me know at rob.perillo@katctv.com.