Avalanche Canada Support SystemUpdates & Top Ten Tips for 2015-16

October 6, 2015

David Jones

• https://weatherpreparednessdesk.wordpress.com/

It’s all here!

The Blog about the Bloghttps://weatherpreparednessdesk.wordpress.com/

New this season…

• Day shift only, smaller team

• Issue time 4am

• BATCH animations

• Use Ninjo on the PC for the webinars

• More partners on the webinar, Parks Canada

• Day 6-10 Outlook

24-hour Precipitation Summaryhttp://iweb.cmc.ec.gc.ca/~afqsmab/pcpn/multi-day/1-to-5dys/CAw/

Scene Weather Systems Map area AC_Weather_SystemsDays 1,2

Scene Pacific Systems Map area AC_PacificDays 3,4,5

Top Ten Tips

Tip #1 The Image Viewer

• Always ‘send to the image viewer’ before exporting

• Maintains the image size

• You ‘get’ exactly what you see in the red bordered scene

Tip #1 Mainwindow image

X

Tip #2 Easy image exporting

• To send all images from the viewer to the PC:

• In View, set Wrapping to ‘wrap to the next series’…

• Export the animation…

• … as Single .PNG files

Tip #2 Wrap to the next series…

Tip #2 Export animation…

Tip #2 As Single .PNG files…

Tip #3 AC lines are too wide…

Tip #3 …just reload the map area

Tip #3 AC lines are too wide…

Tip #3 …just reload the map area

Tip #4 Common map areas

• AC_Pacific

• AC_Weather_Systems

• AC_BC

• AC_LAM

Tip #4 AC_Pacific

Tip #4 AC_Weather_Systems

Tip #4 AC_BC

Tip #4 AC_LAM

Tip #5 Ignore insignificant features

Tip #6 Avoid font over objects

Tip #7 Remember the Outlook!

Tip #8 Met Object Editing !@!&?+&!

• Set the attributes first

• Use ‘Select all of Type’ to advantage

Tip #9 Cut & paste the previous synopsis, spellcheck, thesaurus

Tip #10 Seek input on tweetable headlines

Issues Technical

• Spelling• Cut and paste into MS Word to check!

• Paragraph/text formatting • Do not indent paragraphs!!

• CAPITALIZATION

Capitalization

• The Front• The front

• The Pacific Front• The Pacific front

• Names of AC regions should be capitalized• Northwest Inland

Issues Style

• Redundancy

• Passive writing style

- The man was bitten by the dog.

- The dog bit the man.

- 40 mm is expected over the area tonight.

- 40 mm will soak the area tonight.

• Overuse of descriptors like ‘dominate’

• The tweetable headline - short and sweet!

Issues

• Too much focus on the south coast

• Not enough on the southeast and Rockies

• Referencing MSC regions rather than AC regions

• References to ‘N/E/S/W-ern sections’

• Too many directions!!

• Get more eyeballs on it: get the Supervisor or others on shift to read the entry before publishing

Thanks!

Appendix

The Folder

Prismic: minor modifications

• Add image slots to day 2

• Hard-code issue time of 4am

The Prismic Interface

Day 1 pm

Day 2 am

Day 2 pm

Day 3 pm

Day 4 pm

Outlook (Day 5 pm)