About GR3 Radar
We generally run the GR3 Radar feature only when we expect or are tracking other than clear weather, so you will not always find the feature operational. (In most cases, that would be good news.) This saves us some bandwidth.
"GR3" is the abbreviation for the Gibson Ridge software we use to display the National Weather Service data that come from their NEXRAD Level III sources. We consider the combination the most useful and flexible available, not to mention accuracy and availability. GR3 is a commercially produced package we have purchased, but the NWS NEXRAD data are free, unless you consider that it is our taxes that have made it all available.
Typically, what you see in the GR3 Radar feature is what we are seeing at the station -- the images here are uploaded from our station. It is possible, then, if you are running a series of images by using the Play button, that you may see very different individual images in the series if at the station we have chosen a different screen, magnification, or other setting during the image save and upload process. If you want to see specific images, just stop the player and increment through the series using the arrow buttons.
Note that new images are produced by the NEXRAD system roughly ever 5 minutes. During periods of clear weather, the delay between images may be longer.
We are currently using a brown background for our GR3 Radar screens because it has proven to be best to have weather feature colors stand out. Depending on which city area we are watching, or which radar site we are viewing, you may see a large rectangular area in green. That area is one for which we have purchased a higher resolution background map that will show better detail when we zoom in.
In addition to the GR3 software producing the screens you see, we subscribe to data feeds from AllisonHouse. At any given time you may see the following on the GR3 Radar screen:
- NWS METAR Stations
- CWOP/APRS Stations
- Various Mesonet Stations
- BUOY/CMAN Stations
- Local Storm Reports
- Oficial Hurricane Forecasts
- Hurricane Forecast Models
- Hurricane Hunter Reports
- GOES Satellite 1km Visible Underlay
- NWS Storm Cell Tracking
- Current Frontal Boundaries
- Wildfire Locations from FIRMS
- Earthquake Reports from USGS
- Watches and Warnings by County
- USPLN Lightning
If you would like to know more about any of the information above, click on the hot-linked terms and you will be taken to the appropriate sources. You may want to save a resulting URL of interest for future review.