For many, volatile weather conditions and media accessibility have made weather watching more important and entertaining than ever. Oregon’s Office of Emergency Management has created an online application called the Oregon Weather Dashboard to illustrate current and forecasted weather conditions, pulling information from the state’s four national Weather Service forecast offices.
The dashboard, developed by OEM GIS Program Coordinator Daniel Stoelb, pulls together in one easy-to-access site live Twitter information, high/low temperatures, wind speed, current weather watches and warnings, a 3-day precipitation forecast, flood gage forecasts, current snow depth, and wind conditions in Oregon.
“This new dashboard contains all relevant information for weather conditions here in Oregon,” said Stoelb. “It’s a great resource for the general public who can now see data related to weather conditions and forecasts in the same manner as emergency operations personnel.”
Stoelb’s goal in creating the dashboard was to get everything in one spot and allow users to toggle from one set of data or information to another. The dashboard uses Twitter feeds from four different National Weather Service forecast offices that cover Oregon.
The dashboard is in intended to inform the general public, says Stoelb, but can also be extremely helpful for emergency management community and other public-facing agencies.