Bill-
wgallus@xxxxxxxxxxx (William Gallus) wrote:
We are creating our own plots with gempak for the Eta fields (it is really the
whole reason I finally insisted ISU get better computers so that gempak would
work!) However, we don't make hard copies.
A big debate here (and possibly elsewhere) is over the role of paper weather maps. We
(being a small school) ran into problems where it was hard to get the maps posted. We
have so much nice software to view weather data now that we stopped posting maps last
year. Yet, our senior class this year likes those maps and says that they prefer the
quickness of a weather map room compared to the time involved using a computer. So, we
may hire an undergrad to post maps and go back to an "old-fashioned" map room.
It seems each year of students has different opinions. Perhaps we should automate one of
our cron jobs to also spit out ps files that we can print of the Eta.
I think many sites are dealing with this issue. Some have opted to print some
of the maps as you suggest. Others have opted for display only. One of the
problems with printing is that you might be limited to 8 1/2x11 unless you have
a printer capable of handling the larger sized paper. You might try printing
some of the maps and see if that sates the student's appetites. The carrot
might be that this way they get to look at ETA data instead of NGM.
Don
