- December 14, 2007
- Added a Take it to the MAX! webpage describing CoCoRaHS which offers a unique way you can help fill gaps in the rainfall data by becoming a volunteer and taking measurements of precipitation from your location.
- September 28, 2007
- Added a link to the front page of JetStream called "Today's Weather Activity". These activities are Java-based and change each day.
- Monday is Sliding Puzzle day.
- Tuesday is Word Search day.
- Wednesday is Concentration day (Similar to the classic TV show where you must solve the rebus).
- Thursday is "Coloring Your World" day.
- Friday is Jigsaw Puzzle day.
- The sliding puzzle and coloring activities repeat each weekend, usually with different graphics.
- August 29, 2007
- Finally, the long promised rewrite of the underlying HTML. Call it JetStream 2.0 if you will. There are many changes as well to the content. The Doppler Radar section in the previous version was separated from the Remote Sensing section. The El Niño section was expanded. Some graphics were recreated and hopefully improved. The weather safety posters were tweaked. More questions were added to the online quizzes. And many more changes.
- January 25, 2007
- From the "best laid plans of mice and men" department JetStream is under going, albeit very slowly as time permits, an html rewrite to underlying html code for compliance with xhtml web standards and to allow and to fix the printing issue (a problem since inception). The original intention was that as each section was completed that it would be posted. However, in practice, it will not work as neatly as anticipated so the rewrite will not be be posted until the entire site can be changed.
- June 27, 2006
- Tweaked the Tropical Cyclone section slightly, mainly to separate the cyclone classification into is own page. Also added a NASA movie the covers the life of Hurricane Wilma showing how the sea surface temperature changes as it passes various locations.
- May 26, 2006
- Added a 2 x 3 feet hurricane tracking poster for plotting tropical cyclones to the downloads section. The press quality PDF file is a little over 1.25 mb in size.
- May 4, 2006
- Not really a "What's New" but more of a "Why no change". There have been requests to disable the "Back" button on the test pages. Apparently, some students, after taking a quiz and seeing the correct answers, will use the back button to correct their quiz and resubmit the test resulting in a passing grade.
After some consideration, we have elected to not implement this feature. The reason is it violates the Government's 508 rules concerning accessibility. We would also be placing undue hardship on those unable to use a mouse. While we are honored the quizzes have been used in formal education settings (as was our intent), we want to allow as many as possible the opportunity to enjoy the thrill of accomplishment by achieving a passing grade.
The quizzes (question and distracters) will remain randomly generated each time the page is loaded. We also continue to provide the quizzes in both pdf and Word document formats (with answer keys) in the Appendix should you desire a more controllable format. With these files you can reorder the questions/answers yourself so they do not match the answer key. Thank you for understanding.
- March 29, 2006
- Added the "long promised" new section about the Ocean. It includes six new "learning lessons".
- February 22, 2006
- Updated the Doppler radar section to reflect the current version of the NWS Doppler radar web display.
- February 2, 2006
- National Weather Service today announced plans to implement the Enhanced Fujita (EF) Scale to rate tornadoes to replace the original Fujita (F) Scale. The EF Scale will continue to rate tornadoes on a scale from zero to five, but ranges in wind speed will be more accurate with the improved rating scale. The National Weather Service expects it to be fully implemented by February 2007. (See the new scale)
- November 29, 2005
- Because of this seemingly unending tropical cyclone season, we have added the Greek Alphabet to the Tropical Cyclone names for the Atlantic Basin.
- November 18, 2005
- Added a section on how to download RIDGE radar images. Since the RIDGE radar is displayed in layers, the typical "right click to save" feature does not produce the result one normally would expect. This section helps explains how to save copies of RIDGE radar images.
- November 9, 2005
- Added a link to the Lesson Plan Overview to the Topic Matrix.
- October 13, 2005
- Long time since updated. Projects, hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and other assigned duties has slowed updates to JetStream. There have been a few typo/corrections to various sections over the past six months. But the main project was the new RIDGE radar display that occupied the largest amount of time. The good news is that a part of the RIDGE project lead to the expansion of the Doppler radar section in JetStream. The Remote Sensing quiz has also been expanded to include RIDGE radar questions.
Another change has been the removal of the two weather safety movie posters, "Night of a Thousand Trains" and "Flash Riprock" from the zipped files. They are now a separate downloads on the Downloads page. That page also has two high-res images of Katrina and Rita as well as a high-res mouseover image of the flooding in New Orleans. Because of their sizes, these images will not be bundled in the zipped file. - March 29, 2005
- Have began to occasionally change the opening image on the JetStream title page. The plan is to have a new image every two to three weeks. The images will have a high-res version available for display. Also, an "Oceans" section is currently under development. Projected completion is early next year (added March 29, 2006).
- January 7, 2005
- Aside from minor tweaks the major changes include a revised Air Pressure section with more graphics and two additional learning lessons. Added a summary of all learning lessons to the appendix. Finally, the quizzes are now PHP-based. We included the option for the user to print an "Award of Merit" certificate should he/she score 60% or better. Note: the user must be connected to the Internet for the PHP-scripted quizzes to work. Many thanks to Ken Pavelle of the Arkansas-Red Basin River Forecast Center for his scripts.
- September 28, 2004
- Added five learning lessons. Three are in the Webweather section, one is associated with the Skywatcher Chart and one is in the rewritten Layers of the Atmosphere section. (Many thanks to Gail Patmon for her feedback.) Also added to the "Layers of the Atmosphere" section is a new graphic and a Take it to the MAX! describing the ionosphere.
- August 6, 2004
- All quizzes are now interactive. These quizzes are 8-10 questions in length. Every time the quiz page is reloaded a new quiz is generated with the questions and detractors reshuffled as well as a few new questions. The chance of two people sitting side-by-side and having the exact same quiz is very low. You need to be connected to the Internet to use these quizzes.
- July 20, 2004
- A few minor tweaks. Updated the names of the tropical cyclones by removing the names that were retired last year. Also changed the javascript to java for the radar loops of the March 28 Fort Worth tornado in the remote sensing section.
- March 9, 2004
- Revised the thunderstorm section to create a separate Lightning section. The quiz at the end of the lighting section is java-based. The quiz randomly selects a number of questions from a larger pool of questions. Each time the page is reloaded, the questions appear in a different order as well as most of the choices. Therefore, the odds of any two questions be exactly the same are slim. The quiz section will continue to be tweaked during the next several weeks as we work the bugs out. Thank you Jason Burke.
- December 8, 2003
- Added a Topic Matrix to each side menu throughout JetStream to further aid navigation. Also, added a second JetStream MAX link in the Climate section.
- January 6, 2005
- Added a Topic Matrix. This provides links to each topic covered in JetStream without you needing to search through the site to find what you are interested in.
- September 12, 2003
- Added an answer key to the review questions. In doing so, a few questions were deleted and others were made multiple choice.
- August 5, 2003
- Greatly expanded the Tropical Cyclone section. It is now much more global in aspect as to the locations and names of tropical cyclones around the world. There is also an extensive section covering tropical cyclone hazards and safety.
- May 14, 2003
- As with any major project, there is always room for improvement of a service. There have been some comments concerning the difficulty of some segments of JetStream. With that, we introduce JetStream MAX. JetStream MAX lessons contain more in-depth information concerning certain topics.
For example, the first JetStream MAX section is the new cloud classification section. What we've done in the JetStream project is simplify the examples and omitted references to specific cloud types and symbols. The detailed clouds pictures and advanced information that were in the original JetStream have been moved into JetStream MAX. The idea is that if you want a more in-depth study then all you need is to "Take it to the MAX!" To get to JetStream MAX look for the Take it to the MAX! links that will be added over time. - April 29, 2003
- We've added an appendix which, for now, contains a glossary of weather terms, a list of acronyms, and a page from which you can download any or all of JetStream in self-extracting zipped files.
- February 3, 2003
- Practically everything is new. The JetStream project will probably never be "finished". We will be adding and expanding on the information contained within this website well into the foreseeable future. The "What's New" page is where you will want to come to discover the latest changes and additions.