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Best Local Online Radar Stills/Loops


jm1fd

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Unfortunately, Weather Underground gets its data from NWS, so when their sites are down, so is the wunderground. I use Weather Underground almost exclusively, especially its mobile version.

There are several weather radars in the Houston area that the public can view.

  • National Weather Service - League City
  • KHOU - Missouri City
  • KPRC - Along the Southwest Freeway

I can't remember if KTRK has its own radar or not.

All the other TV stations (KHCW, KRIV, etc...) get their data from the National Weather Service via an external vendor.

At one time, KHOU's radar was the most powerful in the market. I don't know if that's still true. Belo spent over a million dollars putting in the radar for KHOU. Doctor Neil Frank didn't care. He once described it to me as a "Mickey Mouse radar" compared to the one at the National Weather Service.

His specific complaint is the same one that all TV meteorologists have -- the TV station weather radar only detects in a narrow band. For example, the TV radar might detect all of the rain falling at 30,000 feet. While the Weather Service radar can detect the rain from 100,000 feet all the way down to 5,000 feet. The disadvantage to the Weather Service radar, however, is that to accomplish that thoroughness it only updates every 15-minutes. The TV radars need to update instantly and on the air because that's what the viewers expect. The TV meteorologists and weathermen (not the same thing) make up for this by steering the radar to specific layers of the atmosphere where they think the rain is falling.

It's all terribly complicated.

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Unfortunately, Weather Underground gets its data from NWS, so when their sites are down, so is the wunderground. I use Weather Underground almost exclusively, especially its mobile version.

There are several weather radars in the Houston area that the public can view.

  • National Weather Service - League City
  • KHOU - Missouri City
  • KPRC - Along the Southwest Freeway

I can't remember if KTRK has its own radar or not.

All the other TV stations (KHCW, KRIV, etc...) get their data from the National Weather Service via an external vendor.

At one time, KHOU's radar was the most powerful in the market. I don't know if that's still true. Belo spent over a million dollars putting in the radar for KHOU. Doctor Neil Frank didn't care. He once described it to me as a "Mickey Mouse radar" compared to the one at the National Weather Service.

His specific complaint is the same one that all TV meteorologists have -- the TV station weather radar only detects in a narrow band. For example, the TV radar might detect all of the rain falling at 30,000 feet. While the Weather Service radar can detect the rain from 100,000 feet all the way down to 5,000 feet. The disadvantage to the Weather Service radar, however, is that to accomplish that thoroughness it only updates every 15-minutes. The TV radars need to update instantly and on the air because that's what the viewers expect. The TV meteorologists and weathermen (not the same thing) make up for this by steering the radar to specific layers of the atmosphere where they think the rain is falling.

It's all terribly complicated.

FoxRad is the tallest and most powerful radar in Houston. Power output: 1 mega watt dual polarization , Height ? does any body know how tall it is?

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