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Currently in Norman:
62.8°F | Dpt: 55.7°F Pres: 1004.26mb | Wind: 4 kts SE (130°) Data provided by the Oklahoma Mesonet |
OK Extremes T:71-54°F W:20G25Kts |
Hoot is a part of the development branch of the Oklahoma Weather Lab (OWL) a completely student run forecasting organization at the University of Oklahoma. For this site We use GEMPAK software with data from the NWS, OCS, and other sources to produce all our own graphics on our own servers. Hoot was created completely in house by undergraduate and graduate students, and participation is open to any students with an interest in computing/programming, and weather.
Hoot originally started back in 2004, when a group of undergraduate students (notably Eric Nguyen and Chris Walsh) started making maps using their School of Meteorology web pages. After products were being made operationally, more students got involved and Hoot obtained its first machine to specifically produce and host weather data. The group began to flourish and often met on Friday nights in Sarkey's Energy Center Map room to work on making new maps. During this process the product generation began to overwhelm the machine and group members had to work on a production scheme that would allow all of the graphics to be made in a timely manner.
Throughout the Spring of 2005 and into the Fall the group continued to create a full suite of weather maps that could be used by the student forecasting group, OWL. In February 2006, the "Hoot Group" officially launched the web page by giving a public seminar during the School of Meteorology seminar series. Since that time, development work on new products has continued and when the School of Meteorology moved to the National Weather Center during the summer and fall of 2006, the group obtained a new process machine and a new web machine, greatly expanding the computing power to make products.
During this transition Hoot also became fully integrated into OWL as its development branch. Following the spin up of the new process and web machines, the development group began work on a host of new products and projects. In October 2007 a new OWL forecast web page was launched, largely created by Heather Moser and Tim Supinie. This was closely followed by the development of a new "Hoot site" over Christmas Break 2007 by Joe Young. This new web site replaced an antiquated HTML based hoot site of over 200 individual pages, into an easily updated php site with fewer than 20 pages.
The current development team includes:
Kevin Goebbert - Director of Development Emeritus
Tim Supinie - Director of Development
Joe Young - Deputy Director of Development
Chad Shafer
Alex Zwink
Lindsey Richarson
Heather Moser
David John Gagne II
CJ Biddle
Megan Kirchmeier
Notable past members (whom without which this site would never be possible):
Eric Nguyen
Chris Walsh
Jim Southard
Ben Baranowski
Bryan Burkholder