Photo: Courtesy of Justin Ouellette
Last night, I flipped through the IHT's new app, and spent a good two hours messing with the World Weather tool and satellite maps. Nothing groundbreaking, no, but something new versus the Times' version. Anyhow, the IHT app's features are built very nicely for the iPad, and we heartily endorse them.
But we've just found something even cooler for weather predictions: Radarmatic, an HTML5-powered data visualizer that allows you to manipulate satellite weather animations. It's designed by former Vimeo developer, current Times developer, and analog film enthusiast Justin Ouellette.
Here's how it works: On a map of the U.S., 155 little white dots represent radar sites across the country. Drag the map, and the site closest to its center lights up with the latest data. Those colored areas show where precipitation is occurring—with color representing intensity—and the motion of weather fronts. The genius part is this stuff is drawn right in your browser with JavaScript. Less clunky and more innovative than WunderMap, for sure, and though it doesn't work quite right in Firefox, we're fine with Chrome and Safari.
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