Welcome to a new way of seeing the weather! Introducing 13FutureTrack Doppler Radar: the only interactive, live radar on Rockford television. We will be able to show you different views of storms utilizing doppler radars in Chicago, the Quad Cities, Milwaukee, and our very own radar in Madison. We are also proud to be the first station in Rockford that will tell you how many minutes it will take before a storm gets to your house. In addition, we can show the probability of hail, flash flooding, and tornadoes. This is a necessity in a locale like ours with such rapidly changing weather.
13FutureTrack isn't just a local radar though. We now have the ability to go anywhere in the nation for live weather! That means we can get right into the eyes of landfalling hurricanes, track snowfall rates downwind of the Great Lakes, and even pinpoint weather warnings for locations all over the country (and Canada too). In this screenshot you can see the Red Flag Warnings for parts of Florida and Georgia and Freeze Warnings for coastal South and North Carolina. And right at the weather wall we can touch any county for the latest information!
When WREX made the investment in this new live radar we had to think of a name. We spent weeks brainstorming until we landed on 13FutureTrack. It rolls off the tongue, is simple and easy to remember, and most of all descriptive of what we can do. (I suppose we could've gone with something BIGGER like Extreme Super 3D Live Doppler 13 Million right?) All doppler radars can pinpoint where a storm is now, but few can show where the storm will be in 30 minutes, an hour, or even two hours graphically. That's where our Storm Predictor comes in. Because our doppler radar can pinpoint the speed of the storm it allows us to plot where the storm will be within the next two hours! Imagine how nice this will be when the rain's about to move in but you still have to cut the grass. Better yet when a tornadic storm is moving across the Mississippi, how long will it take before it's on top of you?We really won't know how much 13FutureTrack is worth until we put it to the test during the next severe weather event. Rest assured we have the newest technology to keep you informed, aware, and best of all: safe.
Just a few reasons you can expect more from a leader.
11 comments:
Does it do anything cool with heavy snowstorms?
I saw adam playing with the radar screen on the morning show this morning. looks pretty slick!! :)
Yes! We have winter mosaic coming in from our different doppler radar sites. It will allow us to see rain/snow changes quicker and in real-time. Not to mention the radar is high-resolution so we'll be able to see small-scale differences in precip and type.
Neat! Is it really accurate forecasting rainfall and snowfall amounts?
Let's hope! :) We need all the help we can get pinpointing snow amounts. -ES
p.s. Adam doesn't look like himself ------>
I didn't even notice that picture wasn't you until you pointed it out. So many similarities.
Did you guys just get 3d:live or do you have esp:live as well? Our guys up here at the sister station in Madison are getting both, or so we've heard.
-Adam
I think I saw a preview of your new fancy toy ... I think on (maybe Saturday, or Sunday? night) when you usually are off the air and just have a radar image and guitar music on... I think I woke up in the middle of the night with the TV still on and saw the NEW FutureCast radar instead of your same old same old. I remember looking at it and thinking, "Either I'm still half asleep or they just got a new radar."
ahhahahahahhahahaha i love the bio pics
Jim... what's scary is that Eric's is a real pic of him when he's first gotten into work and hasn't had any Diet Dew yet...
WI weather buff -- Probably last Saturday. The weekend evening MCO must've forgotten that the new radar wasn't supposed to debut yet -- either that, or he couldn't figure out what to put up instead. I was in last Sunday, and I put up a logo still, which I figured would be marginally more entertaining than color bars. I still can't figure out why we can't sell infomercials at that hour -- we manage to fill up the CW, but then again they buy paids in bulk I think.
Gus,
The overnight radar on Saturday/Sunday nights started when I was a Director/MCO at WREX.
We originally used to just shut off the transmitters at 2am (well more like 2:08am I think by the time the sign-off and everything played) because Odetics (the automation system before DTG/VCI) only had the ability to play shows from tape and we only had 8 playback decks (5-DVC, 2-Beta) so there were not enough decks to be able to play back enough shows to fill the entire overnight slot on weekends.
Sometime after I believe we started airing football, the decision was made to use the radar overnight because we were calling Engineering on an almost weekly basis to get the time we were on the air extended due to run-overs. I do remember suggesting we use a skycam, like WIFR does (did?) but I was shot down on that. I figured that would be more entertaining than radar. We did get to make special graphics though for things like Christmas, Thanksgiving and the Pope's initiation, etc. (For all I know, y'all are still using them.)
Anyway, once DTG came in, I'm not sure why they never bothered to sell the overnights. I know up here in Madison, we just run a replay of our 10pm news to fill overnight on the weekends if we don't have paids in the slots.
-Adam
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