All you people do is bitch complain. 
HiRAD, while not perfect, is a VERY neat technology. If you think you can do better, go to college, develop something better, and then get back to me and we'll talk.
Tyler, I hate to break it to you, but you don't know everything. You have terrible temperment, and you are much too cocky. If my "bitching" really bothers you that much, ignore it and either change the topic of discussion or stay out of here until someone else does. Your opinion of HiRAD is fine, but I think it is crap, and I know it always will be. Any reason TWC has to cut itself off from the NWS? Try acting more mature than you think I am for once. I may not be helping my case, but you are not the administrator here.
You're entitled to you're opinion, but all you do is complain about it. Obviously, it's not perfect, nothing is. I mean, NWS obs aren't always up-to-the minute, are they? No. Some NWS sites don't report 24 hours, do they? No. HiRAD was invented to help areas where NWS sites like this exist, or they are too-far in between, and above all, to be MORE LOCAL. Like I said, it's not perfect, but nothing is. It continually undergoes changes and routine maintenance to make it better. But, complaining about it all the time isn't going to do anything about it.
Tyler, I am not complaining about it. I have made my opinions on it clear, but I am not complaining about it. You are
clearly interpreting it the wrong way. Believe it or not, there is such a thing as TOO LOCAL. Here's something you may not be realizing:
Many headends serve massive areas. I know mine does. To my knowledge, my headend serves Grand Ledge, Eaton Rapids, and Ionia, all at least 10 miles away from the location of the STAR itself (where the HiRAD and Falsepoint sites are set to), and Ionia is indeed 30 miles away. The next headend to the west is over there in Grand Rapids. When headends are this large, there is no point for HiRAD. The "local" feel goes away. Precipitation amounts (especially with thunderstorms) vary greatly over the areas served by these headends. Does it do any good for the people north of Lansing to see a report of a thunderstorm that is over the headend south of Lansing? Do the people of Ionia 30 miles away care if south Lansing is getting heavy snow from a lake effect band when it is just cloudy for them? Sure, NWS sites can be spread out, but HiRAD does not do any better to solve this problem. In most cases, it is just changing the central location from the NWS site to the HiRAD site.
When you get into even bigger cities like Detroit or, Pittsburgh for example, there are more airports that are closer together and are more likely to produce legit and accurate results that are plenty close enough to the headends themselves. The NWS sites in cities/central locations
DO produce 24 hour observations. The sites that may not do so are way out in sparsely populated areas where cable is most likely not available anyway. Also, HiRAD updates 3 times an hour. Is this better than the legit NWS sites that produce hourly observations? Sure. But is it better than the sites that update twice an hour? Not really, or at least the difference is neglegable.
