Notes and Information

National Mosaic Mode - this mode provides the latest national doppler radar mosaic of the United States. It is not animated and is not affected by radar mode, animation frames, or clutter reduction settings. Updates for the mosaic are aproximately every 10 minutes.

Auto refresh - if enabled, WxRadMap will check for new data every minute and update the display if new data is available.

Clutter reduction - reduces very light radar returns that are often just considered ground clutter (bugs, birds, dust, etc). However, enabling clutter reduction will also remove visible returns for very light rain and snow. If you wish to see snow... turn clutter reduction off.

Weather Stations - setting "Weather stations" to ON will allow you to browse over 2500 weather stations. The weather station icons (red/white thermometers) will only appear after you have zoomed into a fairly close (county wide) level.  Touching a weather station icon will display the name of the station and its's location. Touching a station's detail button will reveal the latest data for that station. The weather stations update their data about once per hour. Weather stations consist mostly of airports, but also include many bouys and some automated weather stations.

Radar Animation Frames - choose from 1 to 12 frames of radar animation. A setting of 1 really means no animation, showing just the latest radar snapshot. Most people will leave the frames set to 6 or 7, which will show a repeating loop of about the last 30 minutes of storm movement. Choosing a setting of 12 will display about the last hour of storm movement.

Radar Modes - seven modes are provided.
N0R - Base reflectivity, 0.5 degree, 124 nm (nautical miles)
N0Z - Base reflectivity, 0.5 degree, 248 nm
NCR - Composite reflectivity, multi-angle composite, 124 nm
N0S - Storm relative motion, or the radial velocity of the wind relative to the storm's motion. Green colors indicate wind moving toward the radar, red indicates wind moving away from the radar (range is 124nm)
N0V - Base velocity, or the radial velocity of the overall wind field. Green colors indicate wind moving toward the radar, red colors indicate wind moving away from the radar (range is 124 nm)
N1P - One-hour precipitation. Shows estimated one-hour accumulated precipitation within 124 nm. Useful for assessing flood potential.
NTP - Storm total precipitation. Shows estimated accumulated rainfall, continuously updated, since the last one-hour break in precipitation within 124 nm. Useful for assessing flood potential.

Radar data is updated by the NWS every 5 to 12 minutes, depending upon which mode the radar station is currently operating.

For more information on National Weather Service radar products visit this site.

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WxRadMap FAQ

Q. WxRadMap gives me an Error message: "Could not connect to NWS. Check your connection and try again."
A. Your device does not have a network connection (most likely) or the NWS server is currently down (less likely)

Q. I get the message "Missing or Bad data for XXX (where XXX is a radar station name).
A. Either the radar site is down for maintenance or experiencing other technical difficulties.
Please check the NWS URL http://weather.noaa.gov/monitor/radar3/ to get the lastest status of the WSR-88D radars. Radar coverage for the various sites typically overlaps enough that you can choose an adjacent site and get coverage for your area.

Q. What are all the blue dots?
A. Each blue dot represent one of the 155 WSR-88D radar sites operated by the NWS, FAA or the DoD. Touch a blue dot to display the site identifier name and location. Press the green radar icon on the pop-up to load that site's radar. The radar will be loaded based on the radar mode selected, number of animation frames selected, and it's appearance will be affected by the clutter reduction option. Selecting a blue dot, one at a time, is the normal NEXRAD radar browsing mode of WxRadMap.

Q. All of the blue dots (radar sites) have dissapeared. Where did they go?
A. You have probably touched and selected the CONUS USA icon (lower right), thus toggling WxRadMap into National Mosaic Mode. The radar sites are hidden in this mode. Touch the USA icon again to toggle back into NEXRAD radar browsing mode.

Q. I can't find any weather stations. Where are they?
A. There are over 2500 weather stations available to browse in WxRadMap. If the icons for each station were displayed at all zoom levels the map would be cluttered and unusable, therefore the weather station icons only appear once you are zoomed into a level of detail where the map is less than 3 degrees of longitude across (usually at least the state or maybe county level in some cases). Also you must have the "weather stations" option turned on in the settings.

Q. Where does all of this weather information come from.
A. All of the radar data and weather station information used in WxRadMap is provided by the National Weather Service.

Q. WxRadMap crashes when I do...
A. Please report any repeatable crashes or other bugs to: support@wxradmap.com