This document proposes enhancements to the WxSat mobile app to improve weather education and literacy. The app will add selectable color tables to satellite imagery and include tutorials to help users better interpret images. It will leverage the RealEarth platform to serve imagery and make additional earth science data available through the app. The upgrades aim to establish WxSat and RealEarth as educational tools for viewing and understanding satellite data.

1. Enhancing and Educating with the WxSat Mobile App
Kyle A. Nelson1 and Margaret Mooney2
Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS), University of Wisconsin-Madison
Contact Information:
1wxkylenelson@gmail.com 2margaret.mooney@ssec.wisc.edu
I. Vision and Proposal
With ease of access to satellite imagery online and its display increasingly often in local and
national TV weather segments, interest is growing. If we are to become a more Weather Ready
Nation, it is critical to enhance the weather literacy of the general public, weather enthusiasts
and decision-makers worldwide who view satellite and other earth data products and use them
to make informed decisions.
For this FUNding Friday project, I set out to achieve two goals:
1. to enhance the free WxSat mobile app to add selectable IR and WV color table
enhancements in addition to the black and white Visible, IR and WV imagery.
2. Add a tutorial for Visible, IR and WV imagery with static annotated images to highlight
examples of features often seen in these imagery types and to aid the user in better
interpreting what the image is showing and how it relates to them at ground level.
III. Web Map Service and RealEarth
V. WxSat: Now More Powerful Than Ever Before
II. WxSat App: A Starting Point
VI. Future Collaborations for SSEC RealEarthIV. Product Information Pages – An Educational Component
VIII. Release Information
• Expect upgraded WxSat release in Early 2015; The upgrade will be FREE!
• Current WxSat users will receive an upgrade notification in their App Store
What is WMS?
• OGC-compliant method for serving geo-referenced images & data to different client types
• OGC = Open Geospatial Consortium
What is RealEarth?
• A distributable framework for ingesting and managing geospatial data for serving to a
variety of clients:
• Tile services: Google Maps, iOS App, Android App
• GIS software; KML (Google Earth); THREDDS (data discovery)
• Provides an environment to scientists and researchers to upload data:
geolocated images, products, and observations
• Facilitates research by providing the ability to animate through time, layer time-matched
data, and probe interactively.
• Enables visualization of data via web browsers, GIS tools, and mobile device apps
• Helps outreach activities by making it easy for anyone to view the products in a
webpage or on phones and tablets.
• Shares results and displays through unique URLs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. to allow other
researchers and the public to view these products in near real-time
Technical Overview
• Ingest: Many formats (PROJ4); Simple HTTP upload
• Management: Metadata; Arbitrary product size
• Serving:
• Tiles: Rectangles of partial images
• Shapes: Plots of data values
• Data probes: Pop up windows of additional information at specific location
• Architecture: 8GB Linux Virtual Machine using HTTP for all access
• Proxy to Other VMs
• Proxy collects and combines information (tiles, shapes, metadata, etc) from the
appropriate host and returns the result to the client
• The curation of 25 mobile-friendly product information web pages establishes the WxSat
app and reaffirms SSEC RealEarth as educational earth science data viewers.
• The information pages provide users with a qualitative explanation of the product being
viewed, using plain language so that readers will not be bombarded by jargon and
acronyms commonly used in the atmospheric sciences
• Pages are accessed via the “I” or information icon in RealEarth and WxSat
• A pop-up info window (RealEarth) or an external web page (WxSat) will display the info
• GOES-R derived products
• Wildfire detection
• Lightning detection
• Cloud properties
• Clear sky mask
• Rain rate
• Etc… (http://www.goes-r.gov/products/baseline.html)
• DOT
• Winter road conditions
across state lines
• Pilot Training System
• Flight basemaps
• NOTAMs, SIGMETS, etc.
• Custom App Versions
• Easier Product Navigation
• Narrow Focus
Special Thanks:
• Margaret Mooney for her guidance and mentorship on this project
• ESIP Education Committee for a phenominal year as a Student Fellow
• FUNding Friday awards committee and donators for project funding
• Dave Parker, SSEC Primary Architect and Programmer, for his coding expertise
• Tommy Jasmin, SSEC Systems Developer, for his programming expertise
• Erik Gould for design and curation of product information pages
VII. Access SSEC RealEarth and Download WxSat now!
SSEC RealEarth
(http://re.ssec.wisc.edu)
WxSat – Apple iOS WxSat - Android
Cleaner display
Custom layering Create favorites Explore!
More configurable More products
• Available for iOS and Android
• Features
• Global Visible, Infrared and Water Vapor images
• 6-hour imagery loops
• Leverages RealEarth Map Service
• Expandable
By expanding the available datasets beyond the original Visible, Infrared and Water Vapor
satellite imagery, WxSat becomes a powerful and robust real-time weather analysis and case
study tool for the public, scientists and decision makers.