As part of development at the Esri R&D Center in DC , we've been working on new ways to visualize large amounts of data on a map. Large datasets present several challenges. Simply how to render that much data is one issue, but also how do we visualize large datasets when throwing millions of a points on a map no longer makes any sense to the end user. We want to look at a map of data and understand something about that data immediately. Weather offers an incredible variety

Below is a map rainfall totals as of this morning from the CoCoRaHS network . These are two day totals (yesterday and today) and will be updated as more data becomes available. The greatest rainfall total so far comes from 0.5 miles east of Eads, Colorado, where 6.21 inches of rain has been recorded since yesterday afternoon. Most locations within the Denver area are reporting anywhere from 0.5 to 2.5 inches of rain so far, including 1.50" at our weather station in cen

There was a lot of buzz yesterday about the active tornado season Colorado is experiencing, and while it has been active, tornadoes in June are very common for Colorado. Climatologically June is the peak for tornado season in Colorado, with an average of 11.42 tornadoes statewide during the month from 1950 to 2013. Yesterday there were eight tornado reports across the state (not all confirmed) as another active day of severe weather kicked off across the region. Not coincidentally, northeast Co

Our latest spring storm is now well east of the area, bringing snow to Kansas and as far south as Oklahoma City this morning. While some locations did 'bust' low with snowfall from this system, overall (if we did grade our forecasts) I may not give it as bad a grade as some might expect. Snowfall totals from the storm ranged from a few inches to 15 inches, and brought another round of beneficial moisture to the state. Bitter cold for April This storm was impressive on many counts. Let's back up

Updated: Thursday 9:45am, April 3, 2014 Snowfall totals are ranging from about 1 inch at lower elevations to nearly 17" near Black Hawk this morning. Most of the Denver metro area reports are in the 2 - 5 inch range, with a few snow-favored locales now breaking 6 inches. Here is a map of CoCoRaHS snow reports as of 9:45am this morning. We will continue to update this map throughout the day.

The latest analysis from the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center tells so much of how this winter has been: cold and snowy from the Rockies east. Today every state in the country has at least some snow cover, with the exception of Florida. In all, 57.9% of the United States is covered by snow, that's up from 43.7% a year ago today (below). Also note how different the pattern was --