RIDGE - Radar Integrated Display with Geospatial Elements. The NWS New Radar Webpage

NWS is responsible to make its weather, water and climate information widely available to taxpayers using commonly accepted standards and technologies. Currently, the NWS provides weather radar information for all Weather Service Doppler Radars (WSR 88-D) in the United States on the NWS Internet page. The National Weather Service Southern Region, working in cooperation with North Central Texas Council of Governments, has developed a method to display radar images more efficiently than the previous method. These radar images, call RIDGE (Radar Integrated Display with Geospatial Elements), allows the radar image to be combined with geospatial elements such as topography maps, highways, and county boundaries. This not only produces a better image, but provides additional reference information for users to understand where they are located. RIDGE also adds the ability to overlay polygon warnings issued by the National Weather Service Forecast Offices. Each image within the RIDGE architecture is georeferenced which allows GIS users to easily integrate the radar and warning information into custom appications.