NEXRAD Radar & Satellite Maps
Station Configuration
The TNET Weather Station uses a number of pieces of equipment, software and Network connections to provide the data displayed on this website.
Accessibility In Mind
In a major departure from many weather sites, this site has been designed with accessibility for people with disAbilities in mind.
The format for this site was chosen very carefully to provide as an accessible format as possible while providing a site rich in features, color and weather information. The HTML document type chosen for this format is, XHTML 1.0 and the template used strives to achieve compliancy with most Standards-Complaint-Browsers.
Browsers that are considered Standards-Complaint are Opera 7+ Mozilla 1+, MSIE 6+ and Netscape 6+. When using these types of browsers the page should have the same look and feel.
For non-standards-complain-browsers, users should really consider upgrading as the browser they are using is not considered safe for use on the Modern Internet and they could be exposed to many security issues just doing day to day browsing.
However, even those browsers should render the page in such a way that makes them useful sources of information. Lynx for example can't take advantage of any of the style features, but does display the pages in a very logical format that makes it usable.
The template used additionally conforms to the WCAG double A accessibility rating and easily meet the § 508 guidelines for web content accessibility.
The relative simplicity of the template's underlying markup ensures that the page can be easily transformed for rendering in aural, tactile (braille) and other non-visual user agents.
Additionally, the majority of document metrics (widths, lengths and spacings) are font-size relative. This means that a user can increase the default font size of the page (using their browser) without compromising it's layout within some basic limits.
In addition, we have strived to ensure that our pages fit in a minimum of an 800 x 600 resolution screen. While not 100% due to some of the content that we receive from other sites in formats we have no control over, most of the site meets these requirements.
Despite our best efforts however, there is content on our site that has no accessibility component to
it due to what the content is and how we may obtain it. For this type of content, we attempt to notify the
visitor ahead of time by showing the following Icon 
with the ALT text of NOT ACCESSIBLE. These typically
include video media, macromedia movies, and certain types of popups that may not be accessible.
If you note something that you think needs to be made more accessible, please either enter a Guestbook entry or send email to weather@tnetweather.com and we will strive to correct the issue if possible.
Data Accuracy
The ISS main unit is mounted on a 6ft wooden post in the back of the property as far as possible from other structures and effects of shading be nearby trees.
The Anemometer is locate on top of the roof, to maximize the gathering the most from the wind that circulates around the site. It is wirelessly connected to the main control server to eliminate the need to run cables over long distances.
We publish our data continually to CWOP to help make sure our data is accurate.
The CWOP site checks our weather station data against other stations in the nearby area to determine the quality of the data and then reports inconsistencies via email in a daily report when found.
You can check our current status by visiting the following link
Davis Vantage Pro2 Plus Weather Station
The station uses a Wireless Davis Vantage Pro2 Plus weather station. This station is capable of providing Wirelessly logged readings for:
- Rain Collector
- Temperature Sensor (Inside and outside)
- Humidity Sensor (inside and outside)
- Fan-Aspirated Radiation Shield
- Anemometer (Wind Sensor)
- Wireless Transmitter for Anemometer (Model 6330)
- Solar radiation sensor
- UV sensor
The station is physically located in several places. The ISS unit, the main unit, is located in the rear of the property with a 10ft by 10ft grass surface underneath it.
The Anemometer, is connected to a 10ft mast located on the top of the roof and transmits its data wirelessly as well.
Lightning Detection Hardware and Software
- Boltek StormTracker PCI Lightning Detector
- Added to the weather station recently is a Boltek, lightning detector. This detector
is mounted near the front of the property near the office window at a height of aprox
10ft and extends up an additional 36" above the roof line to place the sensor above the ceiling
height of the structure.
The sensor is enclosed in a large black PVC pipe with no metal in it to provide unobstructed sensor access - Boltek StormTracker Detector
- Astrogenic NEXStorm and StormVUE Sofware
- Providing an interface to the Boltek detector is a specialized software package from Astrogenic
that provides both a desktop console interface with Internet update capability along with a
Webserver Flash based component to provide near real time information to the web viewer called
StormVue.
Combined, the two provide information both locally and to remote visitors via the website so they can share in the experience - Astrogenic Systems NexSTorm and StormVUE
The Brains behind the data collection.... Weather-Display - The Weather Station Software, is the software used to collect and process the data that comes from the weather station to produce the data needed to produce the archival data, and special ClientRaw data files that are then sent to the webserver and many other processes throughout the world to provide info about what has occurred here.
A product out of New Zealand from the hard working Brian Hamilton, this software is one of the most comprehensive weather processing packages available. It works with a large number of various different weather station systems.
Data collected is sent to our primary website with basic clientraw data form once every minute, where we use custom PHP based scripts to process the data into display information, charts and graphs. It is also used by an addon Product Weather-Display Live, a Flash remote package that can graphically display on a visitors computer, a real time display of the stations information.
In addition, we provide data to both the WeatherUnderground and CWOP's (Citizens Weather Observer Program). Links for both can be found in the links section of these pages.
SoftWX Software
TNET Weather uses three of the SoftWX software products.
VirtualVP
VirtualVP preprocesses the data from the Davis Vantage Pro2 Plus weather station datalogger and supplies that data to multiple other devices needing to share that data as if they were talking each exclusively to the Davis logger directly.
This enables us to use multiple weather processing packages using the same hardware without attempting to split the signal. A must have for users of the VP2 weather station.
StartWatch
Another great utility from Steve at SoftWX is StartWatch. It allows automatic startup and monitoring of a number of important processes each time the workstation boots up. This includes delaying the start of some packages until other packages are up and running. A necessary requirement if one program can't start running until the program it gets it's data from is running.
VPLive
Finally, we also use VPLive which allows us to see quickly all at once what is happening with the VP2 weather station.
Data Collection and Serving Servers
To provide remote access to the data generated by the TNET Weather Station, a number of work stations and servers are used.
- WinXP Pro Workstations
- Two workstations are used to collect data from the weather station. One is solely used
for Weather Display software and runs 7x24 hours. All of its data is then sent via the
Internet to the main webserver where the data is collected.
In addition, a second workstation is used for connections to the Boltek Lightning detector, a webcam and a series of CCTV video surveillance cameras. - Primary TNET Webserver
- Our primary webserver is located in our own local data center which is fed by a Cox Business Services
network connection to the Internet. Our data center is located in Mesa, AZ
This server is a Sun MicroSystem's Sparc V210 server running Solaris 10
Juniper SSG5 Firewall Protection
Controlling access to the TNET Weather network, we use Juniper SSG5 firewall devices. Purpose-built security appliances that deliver high performance, security and LAN/WAN connectivity for small branch office and stand-alone business deployments
Cox Business Services Network
To make it all work and be accessible to the Internet, TNET Weather uses Cox Business Services to provide its Internet Connection via it systems and servers for reliable data networking access.
Arizona Random Weather Facts
SEVERE WEATHER
Most of the severe weather is seen in Arizona, especially in the Phoenix Metro area, is caused by micro bursts--not tornadoes. A "micro burst" is a small area of rapidly descending air beneath a thunderstorm. When the descending air hits the ground, it quickly spreads out in all directions, causing very strong, straight-line winds. These winds are commonly as strong as 40-60 mph but can exceed 100 mph at times. Micro bursts occur over a rather small space-scale, typically the area affected is less than 2.5 miles in diameter.
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