Weather Radar Module

I am very interested in creating a Weather Radar Module for Ignition. The module would provide a new component that provides a map of weather conditions.

I got the idea from Jason Hamlin. He is exactly the kind of person who I would want to develop the module for. The quote below comes from an email that Jason sent me. I am publishing it with his permission. It describes reasons why this module would be useful and some of the functionality it would have.

As a water reclamation facility, we have major pieces of weather related data we monitor, rainfall and storm/lightning events. Our influent flows are strongly tied to rain events, and storms bring wind and lightning which can cause power disruptions. The accurate prediction and advance notice of these events is paramount in our decisions for staffing, activity planning, and equipment/process control decisions. We generally have weather radar pulled up from an internet site on one of the PCs in the control room, as well as a severe weather monitor radio plugged in on the desk. Also our operators periodically check the forecast predictions. However people sometimes browse to other sites on the spare computers, and I've been asked on multiple occasions about giving the control room a dedicated weather monitoring screen.

It is my vision to have weather radar, storm intensities, and lightning strike data available on demand on our SCADA system, as well as an ability to define radius based alarm ranges for lightning/storm activity within the area. Being able to build alarms off of this data and trigger notifications would give our operators more freedom to do other things knowing "the system" is watching, plus we are discussing the idea of being able to trigger certain equipment to auto shutdown based on lightning detection. All-in-all, it would be a marked improvement to our process, and a valuable option to any industry looking to have weather related monitoring and alarming.

Jason Hamlin
Process Automation & Controls
City of Lynchburg, Dept of Water Resources
Lynchburg, VA 24504

I am looking for more people who want this module. The more people who want this module the more time I will dedicate to getting it done and the faster it will be ready. I am also very interested in receiving objections, feedback and suggestions to help guide the development of the module. Please contact me if you think of something.

I have created an email list dedicated to staying in touch with people who are interested in this module. Please sign up to let me know you are interested in the module and to stay in touch with me about the module.