tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post5548249781871133803..comments2024-03-28T07:43:57.163-07:00Comments on Cliff Mass Weather Blog: Powerful New Tool for Smoke ForecastingCliff Mass Weather Bloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13948649423540350788noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7478606652950905956.post-62393973611684023782016-08-11T05:55:40.426-07:002016-08-11T05:55:40.426-07:00Compared to many fields, I've consistently fou...Compared to many fields, I've consistently found that meteorologists and friends do a fairly good job with color/palette selection. One of these graphs just reminded me of how most graphs truly need to be "reverse video".<br /><br />I'll explain: I was reading the next blog post, "California Water Temperatures in the Northwest" where the usual colors give blue for "cool" and red for "warm", an admittedly usual interpretation. I typically read with black backgrounds, however, because white-text-on-black is a positive image; if I try to read a computer like a piece of paper, the big field of white washes out everything in a matter of minutes and I cannot see the negative image of the text.<br /><br />As I moved on to this article, still with the white background, I was reading the intro paragraphs, glanced down at the first map, and saw... nothing but the state outlines. "Hmmm, I guess there was no smoke this week". Reaching the end of the second paragraph I realized I was losing my ability to read, went back to white-on-black and... voila! there was smoke on the graph.<br /><br />"False color" / "reverse color" / "high contrast", whatever someone wants to label it to deem it "atypical" or "not normal for humans" is all immaterial. A simple contrast checker (second hit on favorite Internet search tool) gives a contrast of light-blue-on-white as only 3.4:1, versus light-blue-on-black as 6.2:1, versus (reverse of light blue)-on-black near 9:1, versus light-yellow-on-black as ~20:1 !<br /><br />Let's see more black backgrounds on our graphs. Some people will see those little wisps for the first time. Imagine the possibilities!Brianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14433834468021679601noreply@blogger.com