I Make The Maps

There are all sorts of free open source programs to produce maps and charts, but none made them pretty. And for video you need pretty.

Having a TV studio is one thing. Trying to sell my services to non-traditional users is another. Most TV stations have expensive equipment to produce on-air weather graphics. My potential clientele do not.

The solution was to ‘roll my own.’ There are all sorts of free open source programs to produce maps and charts, but none made them pretty. And for video you need pretty.

Together with my friend Greg in Connecticut the problem has been solved. And it’s all done with free open source software.

Each finished weather map is the product of multiple basemaps and overlays. The program I use to contour the data has no idea those other elements exist. They’re all squeezed together like an Oreo to make what you see.

Finished map showing snow totals expected through midnight Friday morning.

Nebraska overlay map
Nebraska background map


The weather data goes through GrADS. The base maps are made in QGIS using data from NaturalEarth. All the colors, which rivers to include and the opacity of county lines is all my judgement. There are at least a half dozen layers at work.

The tools for cartography are amazing and I enjoy using them but it’s exacting and tedious.

2 thoughts on “I Make The Maps”

  1. Hi Geoff,
    SO happy for your, having your own weather station from home. I think the maps look great!
    Really miss your most accurate weather forecasts here in CT 🙁 Can you send out weather forecasts to us via our email? 😀 (wishful thinking, huh?)
    You’re the BEST Geoff! YAY Geoff Fox!

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