{"id":4620,"date":"2006-01-10T16:22:49","date_gmt":"2006-01-10T22:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/?p=4620"},"modified":"2013-09-18T11:12:03","modified_gmt":"2013-09-18T16:12:03","slug":"weather-in-the-palm-of-your-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/articles\/4620","title":{"rendered":"Weather in the palm of your hand"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dengel<\/a>

Dengel created and maintains the PDA Animated Weather service known as PAW, which provides real time weather information in a format accesible to PDAs.<\/p><\/div>\n

MADISON \u2014 Weather lovers have a new tool at hand to obtain weather information on demand through a PDA-friendly weather Web service created by Russ Dengel at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.<\/p>\n

Dengel\u2019s PDA Animated Weather service, known as PAW, benefits a diverse community from long-haul truck drivers to firefighters in Puerto Rico to commuters trying to get to work safely on a snowy morning. The free service allows PDA users to access real-time radar and satellite weather images and forecasts whenever and wherever. \u201cIt\u2019s like a meteorologist\u2019s dream,\u201d says Dengel, a senior information technologist at UW-Madison\u2019s Space Science and Engineering Center, where he has access to numerous products.<\/p>\n

Dengel frequently updates and expands the service\u2019s capabilities to meet the needs of his users. \u201cI want to show people what\u2019s possible,\u201d Dengel says. PAW users can choose from a multitude of geographic regions and data options, including functions like animation, zoom and roam. Dengel creates these products using data from SSEC\u2019s Data Center.<\/p>\n

Recently, he tailored the service to meet the needs of the fire department in Puerto Rico. Dengel set up a radar loop centered on San Juan and added satellite data showing clouds over the area. The PAW, he discovered, is \u201ca fairly decent unit for first responders.\u201d He plans to continue to work with fire fighters in Puerto Rico to help them get the most out of the PAW service. Dengel also accommodated the fire department in Boise, ID by outfitting PAW with region-specific radar products.<\/p>\n

Working with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, Dengel now offers a PAW version of the DOT\u2019s winter road condition information. He created an option that permits users to superimpose road conditions on top of current satellite and radar images. By giving \u201cmotorists all the information they need to make good decisions,\u201d Dengel makes PAW invaluable to \u201cthe average Joe who\u2019s driving to work every morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winter weather in Wisconsin inspired Dengel to develop PAW. Waiting for a flight out of the Milwaukee airport last winter, Dengel checked the weather in Madison using a service on his cell phone to get an idea of how long it would take to get from the Madison airport to his home in a suburb. While the mobile service indicated no snow in Madison, Dengel arrived to find three inches of snow on the ground and flakes falling rapidly.<\/p>\n

When he made it into work at the Space Science and Engineering Center, Dengel decided to create a small Web sitethat allowed him to access radar images using a PDA. In the company of many weather enthusiasts, Dengel expanded the program to meet the needs of several co-workers. However, Dengel soon found out that \u201cnothing can hide on the Web.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only a few months after Dengel made himself a system with a few radar images, hundreds of people from all walks of life began to adopt PAW. With the help of co-workers Bill Bellon and Jerry Robaidek, Dengel created and continues to maintain a dynamic site for the PAW products. In August, over two thousand Web users landed at PAW\u2019s humble internet home. During December, the site received over 100,000 hits. The amount of Web traffic reflects the value of the PAW service.<\/p>\n

New users keep picking up PAW products and spreading word of the site\u2019s usefulness. In response to feedback and suggestions from these users, Dengel constantly adds new products and features. He aims to increase functionality for private pilots and other speciality users. \u201cI\u2019m a meteorologist and I like looking at weather,\u201d says Dengel. \u201cI found a lot of people like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Find PAW on the Web at:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/data\/paw\/<\/a><\/p>\n

View UW press release at:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.news.wisc.edu\/11994.html<\/a><\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

Contact:<\/p>\n

Jen O’Leary (SSEC)
\n608-263-3373
\njaoleary2@wisc.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

Russ Dengel (SSEC)
\n(608) 262-6567
\nruss.dengel@ssec.wisc.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A PDA-friendly weather Web service was created by Russ Dengel at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":4621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-articles"],"acf":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4620"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4624,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4620\/revisions\/4624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}