MetWise Review
Software Link
http://www.extremeforecasting.com/
COMMENTS:
| I first tried MetWise awhile back
(many months ago) and was not overly impressed with it. I decided
to try it again recently when a new build was released. Boy...am I
glad I did. This is probably going to be one of the most useful
tools that I own. It has quickly become my new best weather
friend. This software is one of two that I would give a five star
rating. Impressive is all I can say. I have posted a number
of images below and you can see some examples of the products output.
I first re-downloaded the software about 2 weeks ago. I immediately ran into issues with the computer that I was on. I emailed the software manufacturer and he tried to trouble-shoot the problem with me. We could not fix the problem. In the end it was decided that the issue was the computer. This was not a surprise as the DELL Computer that I was on had to be sent back and replaced with another one. So I downloaded the product again last week and it worked flawlessly. I signed up, for the five day free trial, and immediately received a free password and username. It took me less than 30 seconds to sign on and start downloading images. Within 10 minutes I had my first image uploaded to a web-site...showing the potential for a high wind event in Illinois. It took me a few hours to learn a lot of the ins and outs of the software. A lot was learned just by trial and error. Once you read the manual though you will have little or no problem figuring out how to use this software. I HIGHLY recommend everyone try this software. IF YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO TRIED THIS SOFTWARE OUT BUT DELETED IT IN THE PAST - THEN TRY IT AGAIN! TRUST ME ON THIS ONE. |
Ease of use before reading manual
| I decided to try and use this software before I read the tutorial. I always like to see how user-friendly a new product is before going any further. Plus, being a guy, I don't like to read instructions. Who does? Okay well yes there are always a few...but I am not one of them. :) Anyway...if you attempt to use this software before reading or following the tutorial then you will probably become frustrated at some point and you certainly will not be able to take advantage of all of the features. Read the instructions/follow the tutorial. There is also a FAQ section that I would recommend reading. |
Ease of use after reading manual
| This
is one of those products that you need to use after you read the short
intro manual and FAQ page. It took me less than an hour to go
through the whole tutorial (while playing around with the software to
imitate the programmers instructions). You will never be able to
use all of the features if you don't read the instructions. Trust
me. Granted you could probably figure out how to load some
data...but you wouldn't know to extend the max frame output number to 35
or 40 in order to see the entire GFS run. You wouldn't know how to
see color filled images instead of plain line graphics. You
wouldn't know how to work the cross section or time height features.
I could go on and on about this subject but you get the general idea.
Take the time to follow the tutorial before becoming frustrated with any
issues that you might have. Ease of use gets an A (post tutorial). The support manual that goes with this software is helpful but could be more detailed. There were a number of times when I had to experiment with the software in order to figure out how to perform a certain task. This is something that could be easily remedied by the software manufacture. I believe he just needs to know what some of those issues are and he would add comments to the FAQ Page or the manual itself. It would be nice to have some tutorials similar to GRLevelXStuff.com to go along with this software.
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Features
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Features? The images speak for themselves. I am not sure one
could possibly list all the products available with MetWise.
Numerous model products are available. The 0z and 12z runs of the
ECMWF, 0z-6z-12z-18z runs of the GFS, NAM (NAM20 actually on SP), UKMET,
NGM, RUC, ARPS (12km and soon the be 9km), and much more. The
manual can be found here
C:\metwisenet\help\html\ensco\index.html You can read
more about the features there.
The display window with MetWise is easy to use and has a quick response time. I had no problems connecting to their server or downloading images. It was faster than other comparable companies that offer model data...including government sites. The layout of the window is such that you can load up to five different displays - each with up to 8 product overlays. Four of them to the left of the primary window. This gives you almost FIFTY products at your fingertips. You can then click back and forth between each one as needed. One of the strongest features (and there are many) to this software is the ability to overlay up to 8 different fields at one time. As I mentioned above...this is extremely useful when trying to forecast severe weather (or other). You can see from my examples how that works. This is extremely useful for displaying wind fields, instability parameters, and so on. Impressive! A number of the products, offered by MetWise, can not be easily found online. Some of the forecast parameters for the NAM and GFS, such as forecasted 3 or 6 hour pressure falls, are most likely going to be difficult to find on most college based sites. Then you have to add in the ability to left click a field and turn it off or on, the ability to pan and zoom, the ability to quickly add a product if you left one off - :) makes this an incredible forecasting tool. I could go on for hours about this product. It would be impossible for me to post examples of everything it can do. If I had six stars I would give this product six stars. There is only one other software tool that I use that comes even close to this. I highly recommend this product to anyone who is serious about studying the weather or forecasting. You can't go wrong. |
Customer Support
| I have tried a lot of different kinds of software over the years. Many of those have good customer support while others do not. There are a few that stand out though. Gibson Ridge Software, WxMessage Software, and now this. I would give MetWise Customer Support an A+. Although I was unable to get a response on a few of my questions on Saturday and Sunday, and this is to be expected, I was able to have NUMEROUS questions answered on Thursday, Friday, and Monday. I tried my best to ask as many questions in as many emails as possible. I wanted to see if the support would get annoyed. This usually tells me a lot about the person running the show. I am pleased to say that Bill Bauman answered all my questions. Bottom line is that customer support is great. |
Price
| It is amazing that this software is FREE. Yes I did say free. I would have been more than willing to pay the same price for this software that I had to pay for Gibson Ridge Software. There is a monthly fee but nothing outrageous. For less than $10 a month you get thousands of product options. I use Wright Weather and believe that MetWise will likely replace my dependence on that company. The ease of use with this software and the ability to overlay products is a need that other companies have yet to meet. Thus the monthly fee for MetWise is well worth the money. |
Suggestions and future enhancements...
| Bill
Bauman sent me this email concerning the future of MetWise The software evolves based on our user's requests and requests from the government users of FX-Net (which is restricted to National Weather Service Incident Meteorologists (IMETS)). We are partners with NOAA on this project and share improvements with each other. They remain the software developers and maintainers and we fund them to make improvements for our users. In-turn, we market and sell subscriptions to anyone that is not an IMET but wants the same capability as the NWS for their weather display and analysis tools. We have a long list of future plans and upgrades...some minor, some major. We can only support upgrades based on revenue from our subscribers since we have to pay NOAA to make changes. Once we have enough revenue in the kitty, we can incorporate changes. But NOAA will also make their own changes and provide us with a new version of the software which we provide to our users. So there is no schedule for updates, they happen when they happen. If there is an actual error or problem with the software or our systems, we fix it immediately. If it's a request from a user or users, we get to it as funding permits. You can see this software is mature - not brand new. The NWS has been using it for many years now and we just upgraded from V4.0 to V4.6 in January. You can read about the features we added with V4.6 on the web site. We welcome any suggestions and comments from users like you - that's how we improve the product and service. The only suggestion I have is that there could be more detail to the users manual and they need a forum. |
EXAMPLES
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