News and Notes

New KCRG CityCam: McGregor

1489 Views
Permalink: ID #1444
Date: 2023-04-26 10:54 AM
Author: Daryl Herzmann
Tags: webcam
Link: https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/current/viewer.phtml#KCRG-036
A KCRG-TV webcam has been added in McGregor (far northeastern Iowa along the Mississippi River in Clayton County) to help monitor the rise of the river. It is unclear if this webcam will be permanent, but it has been added to the various IEM tooling!

Updated 4 May 2023: The webcam was temporary and has been removed.

Archived RWIS Webcam Imagery

1272 Views
Permalink: ID #1439
Date: 2022-12-14 01:49 PM
Author: Daryl Herzmann
Tags: webcam
Link: https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/current/viewer.phtml
Since 2010, the IEM has been archiving Iowa DOT Roadway Weather Information System (RWIS) webcam imagery. Most of the RWIS stations have a webcam that take a suite of static views at ad-hoc time intervals. Up until now, the IEM only had this clunky interface as a means to view this archive.

Now the main IEM Webcam Viewer App will show the near realtime and archive from the RWIS network in Iowa. For example, here's a screenshot from 4 February 2021.
RWIS Imagery

This is powered by a IEM Web Service that emits a GeoJSON with links to the archive.

Hopefully folks find this useful and please keep feedback/ideas coming my way!

New KCRG Webcam: Peosta

2821 Views
Permalink: ID #1433
Date: 2022-05-19 09:39 AM
Author: Daryl Herzmann
Tags: webcam
Link: https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/current/viewer.phtml#KCRG-034
A new webcamera has been added to the KCRG-TV CityCam Network. This webcam is located in Peosta, which is just SW of Dubuque in eastern Iowa. The webcam is located at Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC).

Current Webcam View

New Webcam: Marengo

3533 Views
Permalink: ID #1372
Date: 2018-04-27 08:42 PM
Author: Daryl Herzmann
Tags: webcam
Link: https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/current/viewer.phtml#KCRG-028
A new webcam has been put online by KCRG-TV in Marengo. This city is just west of Iowa City in eastern Iowa. The IEM partners with KCRG-TV to collect and archive imagery from their webcam network. This dataset is invaluable environmental information and the archive provides a visual history of weather conditions every five minutes.

Welcome Marengo!

IEM Webcam Viewer Update

2269 Views
Permalink: ID #1292
Date: 2016-06-05 01:19 PM
Author: Daryl Herzmann
Tags: webcam
Link: https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/current/viewer.phtml

The IEM Webcam Viewer application has gotten a significant update to hopefully make it more useful to folks. The following changes have been implemented:

  • The application has two modes it can run in. A "realtime" mode, which dynamically refreshes all content without user intervention. An "archive" mode, which allows the user to set a time and view all data valid at that time.
  • Stable website links are generated for viewing archived content.
  • The individual NEXRAD sites in Iowa for plotting were removed for the time being as their archive display logic is a bit tricky. This will get added back someday.
  • The application is more efficient now with not making duplicate requests for the same content.
  • The display should look better now on large screen sizes.
  • The listing of "Webcams" applications on the website's header bar has been rearranged and hopefully better labelled.
  • Explicit timestamps and labels are shown below the webcam and RADAR displays. Previously you would have to make assumptions about this or attempt to read the small timestamp in the lower left corner of the webcam image.

Here's an example view of the display in "archive" mode:

In the image, you can see the archived webcam image, archived US NEXRAD Composite imagery, the pointing of each webcam at the time, and any NWS warnings active at that time.

As always, let me know of bugs or suggestions you may have.