RadarLab X Help Guide

Add the Latitude and Longitude points that make up your lines in the text box on the Custom Lines editor. Each latitude and Longitude point must be in degrees, decimal degrees and separated by commas. Longitude points must have a negative sign in front of them.

Example: “32.6745,-94.3587”

You can define more than one line. The points that make up a line must be written on the same line in the text box. So if you want two line segments, you will have two lines of points in the text box. Here is an example of two lines.

37.67,-87.97,37.65,-87.30,37.25,-87.32
36.28,-87.70,36.29,-87.43,36.10,-87.48

All lines will be set to the color chosen in the color picker. However, you can give each line its own color by listing the color as the first item in the line. So to make one red line and one blue line, you would do following.

red,37.67,-87.97,37.65,-87.30
blue,36.28,-87.70,36.21,-87.45,

To set up a custom lines, use the menu in the top-right and navigate to Settings > Map Contents > Custom Lines.
In addition to weather overlays, you can display various kinds of geographical information in RadarLab using the ‘ Overlays’ menu.

World Boundaries

Draws political boundaries (countries and U.S. states) on the map. You may customize the color of the lines in the settings menu.

Country Boundaries

Draws county boundaries on the map. You may customize the color of the lines in the settings menu.

City Labels

Draws city and community labels on the map. The size of the label is determined by population.

County Names

Displays county names on the map. The county name is centered over the county.

GPS Location

Displays your GPS location on the map. This requires that RadarLab be granted location services permissions in your OS. Additionally, if you’re using Microsoft Windows, you may use a hardware GPS. You will have be prompted to specify serial port information for RadarLab to access data from your GPS device.

Custom Locations

Displays user-defined custom locations. You may add as many custom locations as you want, as well as customize the label size, position, and color. Locations may also have multiple range rings. These can be used in conjunction with the storm tracks overlay and alarm feature.

Custom Lines

This is similar to the custom locations feature, but plots lines as opposed to points.

Interstates

Draws the interstates on the map. You may customize the color of the lines in the settings menu.

Places Map

These pair nicely with the various backgroud maps accessible in the settings menu. These are provided by [HERE](https://www.here.com/). It’s recommended that you disable city labels, county labels, and interstates as they’re made redundant by this option.

Note to RadarLab Local users

You may notice some overlays are missing in this version of RadarLab, namely airports, park boundaries & names, state roads, and lakes & rivers. These were removed in favor of the places map overlay, which displays all of this information and more. If a location you’re looking for isn’t present on the map, it may be added manually using the custom locations feature.
In the top right of the screen you will notice a drop-down menu with arrows. This is used to switch between different tools.

Pan/zoom

– This is the default. It simply lets you move around the map and zoom in/out.

Interrogate

– This is used for more closely analyzing the plotted radar data. When this tool is selected, holding down the left mouse button will reveal the interpolated datum for the hovered radar echo in dBZ, m/s, etc.

Mouse measure mode

– This measures statute and nautical miles from one point to another. In this version of RadarLab, a ring is also displayed around the selection.

Draw mode

– This allows you to draw on the map. Particularly useful for highlighting severe weather features in broadcast and meteorology education. Hold down the left mouse button to draw, and click the right mouse button to clear the canvas.

Accessible in the top-left corner of the screen (the ‘ Overlays’ menu), many weather data overlays may be plotted on the map. Some layers may feature a slider used for controlling opacity, as well as a drop-down menu for customizing the display.

Radar

Toggles radar visibility. Note that this doesn’t load or unload radar data by itself.

Satellite

Displays either visible, infrared, or enhanced infrared GOES-16 satellite data based on your preference. This data is updated every 5-10 minutes.

Storm tracks

Displays the storm tracks on the map. The storm tracks are color coded depending on severity. The user can define the color and size of the storm tracks. Clicking on the storm track will show all the attributes associated with that storm track and a storm path estimate.
You may also display the “storm attributes table”, providing more detailed information as well as options for filtering storm tracks based on TVS, MESO, top dBZ and top VIL.

Local Storm Reports

Displays Local Storm Reports issued by the NWS. These are reports of weather phenomena or damage caused by severe weather events. They are reported by trained spotters, law enforcement, EMA and other personnel.

SpotterNetwork

Displays information provided by the [SpotterNetwork](https://www.spotternetwork.org/). These are reports issued by trained weather spotters and are similar to the Local Storm Reports issued by the NWS.

Current Temps

Displays the current temperatures on the map. This information comes from data issued by METAR reporting stations. Dew point temperature may be displayed in place of this as well.

Wind Barbs

Displays wind barbs next to temperatures. Clicking on wind barbs or temperatures will display surface observations from the hovered station.

Watches, Warnings, & Advisories

NWS watches, warnings, and advisories (WWAs) may be displayed. You can filter various WWA types.

Mesoscale Discussions

When conditions begin to shape up for severe weather, the SPC (Storm Prediction Center) often issues a Mesoscale Discussion (MCD) statement anywhere from roughly half an hour to several hours before issuing a weather watch. This information may be displayed similar to WWAs.

Severe Weather Outlook

Enabling this will display the latest SPC day 1 convective outlook mosaic.

New in RadarLab X, you may display radar data in either a single-pane display (standard), or dual-/quad-pane displays we call “workspaces”. Workspaces display various radar products, including products from different radar sites.

Workspaces

To set up a workspace, use the menu in the top-right and navigate to Settings > Default Settings > Workspaces.

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