Multiple overlay card options added. Each card manages 1 level, e.g. 500mb level of overlays. The default Overlay card is for the level of the main variable. Everything added from that card will be at the same level as the main variable. Add another card and choose the level to mix different information like 500mb temperatures and surface temperatures, Mix heights and relative humidity, or any combination. the main variable has the option of being shaded rather than contoured. All other Overlays will be sometype of contour or glyph like wind barbs or streamlines.
Added Equitorial Pacific Region and Globe regions (Pacific, Atlantic, Arctic & Antarctic) with orthographic projections
Added sea surface temperatures
Updated layout to side by side views with accordian style input menu
Added object storage which will allow us to scale as our traffic and users increase.
Each page reload or refresh resets default values before applying parameters passed in via direct link. This fixes the bug where the map results may not align with the UI settings when clicking on a generated link. Building and generating directly has always had this behavior.
Maps now use the unit preferences in the user's settings for wind speed (knots vs m/s), accumulation (mm vs inches), and F vs C for temperature, even if a saved link has different units. A user can change their own settings if they want to change units; the link should not override preferences.
Added a new date mode, "Slice". Slice looks at one or more 3-hour time frames (the synoptic times and the times in between) and averages or sums those windows across the series of dates selected. This is an intuitive feature when compositing (averaging) or comparing variables with diurnal fluctuations such as temperature, cloud cover, and solar energy, and features related to them such as the low-level jet, which strengthens after solar heating is reduced. Vertical slices of the atmosphere such as a skew-T profile would also be significantly different if created as a time slice (every day at 12Z) versus a daily composite (00Z, 06Z, 12Z, 18Z averaged). This is an exciting and needed update!
Improved the time scale and date selection interface, adding "Slice" as a new date mode. Before this, a Daily time scale with a single date, a range, or a list of dates silently sent an hour (00, 03, 06, 09, 12, 15, 18, 21) to the API as well. The result was a map that represented a single slice of time across those dates. In some cases this is what is intended, for example a composite of afternoon temperatures during a heat wave. We have made this an explicit choice, under the name "Slice", where the list of dates and the selection of one or more hours creates a Cartesian product of the two and averages them together, or in the case of an accumulation variable like Total Precipitation, adds them all together.
We suspect that in the majority of cases the user wanted the daily composite, the average of the synoptic times (00, 06, 12, 18). We have corrected this communication between the user interface and the API call, and clearly labeled the resulting maps.
This affected only 2% of the maps saved in the library. When those users recall those links in the browser, they will see a popup that explains the slice behavior and gives instructions as well as a direct link to switch to the daily composite mode instead.
Of the maps affected, only one style of map appeared to have a significantly different pattern compared to the daily composite: surface wind speeds over a tropical region and cloud cover, both of which have strong diurnal patterns, so in those cases it may have been exactly what the user intended.
One of our leading principles at PyRe Weather is that the methods used for calculations, composites, anomalies, and normalized maps are mathematically and scientifically sound, and that our user interface remains clear and easy to understand without ambiguity. -SMA
Added a /regions page that lists all available regions, and a preview blank map with coordinates and projection used. Links to the map builder with a new "blank map" option.
Caribbean region added, using Mercator projection
Documented NWS/PSL methodology for calculating climatology & SD based on variable type in project documents
Added PWAT anomaly & Normalization maps using R2 15 day moving average of 1990-2020 climatology, the most scientifically sound option currently based on NWS/PSL documents
Added user options panel for units and layout, and removed those from each individual variable option. This is going to set us up for an improved more compact UI with room to grow
Updated PWAT scale to represent moisture better (rather than heat)
