Saturday, July 24, 2010

MyCast® improved



It appears my MyCast® weather-radar has been improved.
MyCast goes back at least seven years. I installed it on the advice of a coworker at the Mighty Mezz while I worked there.
It’s a weather-site, but mainly I use it to display weather-radar.
There are other weather-sites, e.g. WeatherBug and Weather Underground.
I can even display weather-radar on 13WHAM.com.
But MyCast has always been okay.
I can specify specific weather-radar center-points, e.g. “home” and “the Mighty Mezz.”
Of course it’s displaying the weather-radar for a wide area, at least 90 miles.
It can go nationwide.
I use it to decide whether to ride motorcycle, and whether to mow lawn.
Of course, it’s not all-knowing.
It can’t display the future; like if clouds form overhead that will eventually dump rain. —A pop-up thunderstorm, for example.
It only displays after-the-fact, as rain falls.
But if a front is coming east, and it’s already raining in Buffalo, it will display that.
In other words, put away the mower. It will rain while mowing.
The improvement is a 90-mile image is no longer jaggy.
“Jaggy” means just that, a jagged display.
At 90 miles, rain-shields would have jagged edges; vertical, then horizontal, then vertical, and-so-on.
It was apparently a function of old computing.
The image resolution was low enough to display jagged edges if blown up.
It was so obnoxious I went no lower than 170 miles.
But it’s improved.
90-mile images are no longer jaggy.
The image above is at 90 miles.
A while ago I discovered I could get MyCast weather-radar for my cellphone.
Here I am outside waiting for a train in central PA, and I see a shower coming on my MyCast cellphone radar.
Into the car; here comes the rain.
Cellphone weather-radar isn’t as exact as my computer radar.
I can’t pinpoint an exact location by geodesic coordinates like I can on my computer.
But it’s close enough — it’s by zip-code.
It’s kept me dry a few times.
As you can see I dumped “the Mighty Mezz” and replaced it with “Baker Park,” where we walk our dog.
I retired from the Messenger over four years ago.
The green-and-yellow blob is a pop-up thunderstorm.

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• “WHAM” Channel-13 is the local ABC TV affiliate, local to Rochester.
• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester, which is east of Buffalo.
• “We” is me and my wife of 42+ years, “Linda.”
• RE: “Waiting for a train in central PA........” —I’m a railfan, and have been since I was a child. Central PA is the location of the old Pennsylvania Railroad mainline, now operated by Norfolk Southern Railroad.
• “Baker Park “ is a fairly large city park in Canandaigua. It’s mostly fenced, so we can safely walk our dog there partially off-leash. (Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s five, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. [A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't too bad.])

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