What's TruPoint?

TruPoint is the technology The Weather Channel created to give the most accurate and location-specific weather information you can find.  I thought I'd put it on my wiki, since I have been using data from The Weather Channel's website (weather.com) to provide the forecast on the FrontPage of the wiki.  Here is the information The Weather Channel gives about TruPoint on their website:  (you can access it by clicking HERE)

***note about this article mentioning weather instruments placed on buildings:  the weather station i am putting up is MUCH more advanced than most on the market.  It has an advanced rain guage- one that empties itself every fifth of an inch of rain.  It has a heater to accurately melt snowfall precipitation.  It has UV and solar radiation sensors to sense sky conditions.  For more specs, visit the link provided on the FrontPage.

The Weather Channel's TruPoint Technology

The Weather Channel's unique TruPoint^SM technology delivers the most accurate weather reports and forecasts - for more locations - than any other weather provider.

How do most providers obtain weather information?

Most weather providers rely on National Weather Service (NWS) observation stations that are primarily located at airports and military bases. Each state only has a handful of these stations. The entire state of New York has less than fifty such sites, for example. Their reports are only accurate and relevant in the immediate vicinity of the observation station and generally updated only once every hour.

There are also some providers that base their observations on instruments that only report temperature and wind conditions - data that can be misleading since the instruments are often placed improperly on the rooftops of schools and other buildings. Furthermore, these instruments are unable to reliably detect precipitation, particularly snow, and cannot sense sky conditions, cloud cover, etc.

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How does The Weather Channel observe and forecast weather conditions?

The Weather Channel has developed a patented and proprietary system known as TruPoint to deliver local weather reports and forecasts with unmatched precision and accuracy.

TruPoint uses weather radar, satellite, a lightning detection network, weather prediction models, surface sensors and virtually all other available observation data to derive the current weather conditions for 1,000 more observation points than standard NWS sites. Temperature, wind, humidity, precipitation, visibility, and cloud cover are updated several times each hour for points every 1.5 miles across the country.

Think of TruPoint as a virtual Web cam and weather station that has remarkable skill in telling you if there is rain, snow, ice, dangerous fog banks, high winds, and other notable weather occurring for virtually any point within the lower 48 states.

This same technology is used to extend existing weather conditions six hours into the future at 15-minute intervals. This enables TruPoint to provide a highly specific and localized short-term forecast that will help you stay one step ahead of the weather.

1. Start with weather model data from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) weather prediction system as a "first guess."
2. Refine this output to correct for elevation, terrain, and other localized factors that affect current conditions and forecasts.
3. Use conventional surface observations from the National Weather Service stations, as well as satellite data, to refine even further.
4. Supplement with real-time lightning data.
5. Incorporate data from the national network of Doppler radar, updated every five minutes.
6. Apply sophisticated quality-control to ensure a sensible weather report/forecast for each local data point.

Best yet, no special or complicated steps are required to get TruPoint information. Simply enter your city or ZIP code at the top of any page on our site to get the highest quality weather on the Web!