GRLevelX Scripts

GRLevelX stormed onto the radar viewer scene a couple of years ago, quickly improving to become the most complete and capable radar viewing application suite available. For more information about the three applications (GRLevel3, GRLevel2, and the newly-released GRLevel2Analyst), please go to the GRLevelX website. Below is a list of functioning dynamic and static placefiles. Note that the scripts run whenever they are called, but the update frequency refers to the amount of time the script tells the application to wait before ingesting the placefile again:

Jump to placefile:

• State surface observations (METARs)
• Oklahoma Mesonet
• West Texas Mesonet
• SPC Day 1 Convective Outlook
• SPC Day 1 Probabilistic Products
• SPC Convective Weather Watches
• SPC Convective Weather Watches (shaded)
• NWS Forecast Office Telephone Numbers
• Spotter and Skywarn Amatuer Radio Repeaters
• SPC Mesoscale Discussion(s)

The generic address is as follows: http://grlevel3.tornadocentral.com/metars.php?state=** , where ** is the 2-letter state abbreviation. For example, the link above contains Oklahoma METARs. Update frequency: 15 minutes.

I used to have two different Oklahoma Mesonet scripts, each of which decoded a different data file. However, one of them (which used a *.csv file) no longer works. The working script uses the latest MDF file from the Oklahoma Climatological Survey. What are the differences between the CSV file and the MDF file? The CSV file contained the dewpoint and sea-level pressure, while the MDF file does not contain the dewpoint (meaning that the Td must be calculated from pressure, temperature, and relative humidity) and the sea-level pressure (it contains the station pressure). On the good side, however, is that the MDF file updates every 5 minutes. Regardless, for server resource and bandwidth issues, I've set the refresh time to be twice that. Update frequency: 10 minutes.

Surface observations from the West Texas Mesonet. Update frequency: 20 minutes.

This placefile will display the current SPC Day 1 Convective Outlook. Update frequency: Variable, depending upon current time relative to planned issuance time (6z, 13z, 1630z, 20z, 01z).

The generic address for this script is http://grlevel3.tornadocentral.com/****prob.txt , where **** is the particular hazard probability data desired -- tornado, hail, or wind. Please note that these placefile addresses have changed! Update frequency: Variable.

This script contains the points and type for each valid weather watch (tornado or severe thunderstorm). The SPC now issues various probabilities associated with each watch. As an example, please see the watch probability page for WT318. Update frequency: 5 minutes.

Just like the placefile above, except it shades the area inside the watch parallelogram. Update frequency: 5 minutes.

Adam Wolff came up with the idea to make a placefile for the contact/telephone numbers for various NWSFOs. If combined with a CWA placefile, this placefile can aid chasers and spotters in determining the phone number to contact the local NWSFO. Please download this file (right-click and "save-as") since it is a static placefile. Update frequency: Static, irregular.

This is a community project that I started last fall. Unlike the previous placefiles, this is a static placefile that contains locations of spotter- and Skywarn-related ham radio repeaters. Given the number of repeaters involved, it has made for a relatively good community project. That said, there is a lot of work still to be done, and if you want to contribute, let me know! Please refer to the Skywarn / Weather Repeater Community Project thread on the GR3 Owners Forums for more information. Please download this file (right-click and "save-as") since it is a static placefile. Update frequency: Static, irregular.

This is an experimental script since I JUST finished. It's far from polished, and I'm sure there are some undiscovered bugs. At any rate, feel free to test it out. The pop-up text can only support 512 characters... Most MCDs have discussions far longer than this, so I've needed to come up with an alternative. For the time being, I've made an icon where the "overflow" text is placed. The icon (which is just the text "MORE") is placed 0.1 degrees south of the first anchor point of the MCD. If there is more discussion than is allowed, another MORE icon is placed 0.2 degrees south of the first anchor point (or so forth). Again, it's not polished by any means, and it's probably not bug-free, but at least it's working for now.

There are a few other placefiles that I use, such as the AHWR (All-Hazards Weather Radio, aka NOAA Weather Radio -- I may combine this placefile into the "repeaters" placefile) and a roadsigns placefile.