This section describes in detail how to create animated movies of Snow Water Equivalent and the Deviations from Snow Water Equivalent. Note: The instructions on how to make animated movies could be printed out and given to the students as an extension exercise, letting them make their own movies.
Here is how you get started:
The data were gathered from the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center (NOHRSC) on the internet. Once you are there, check out NOHRSC Weekly 9-panel Snow Summary. This is the current snow data.
To make animated movies:
The images that are on the animated stacks were taken from the NOHRSC Anon-FTP Server. Now you choose the month and day you are interested in. Some days have more data than other days. The data used in these animations were labeled wuw ( which is a code for Snow Water Equivalent) and wuz (the code for Deviation from Normal Snow Water Equivalent). In addition, they are Gif images. This data will give similar results to the animations on the CD. Save the images as a Source, and remember to label them as far as what the image is (SWE, etc.) and the date. This will help you to open them in the proper order, an absolute necessity to show accurate change per time in any data set.
Use GifConverter to convert from GIF format to TIFF format. This is necessary in order to animate the images using NIH. Once again, label them as TIFF files (keep the rest of the original title) in order to keep everything straight. Once all images you intend to use are converted, close GifConverter and open NIH image. Open the images in chronological order then from the menu bar choose Stacks, then choose Windows to Stack. After this has been done go to Stacks again and choose Animate. This will display all images one after the other in the order you opened the images. If you click on the ÒresizeÓ window in the upper right hand corner of the image page, the entire region should be visible to you. You can scroll through the images individually by using the < and > keys. This should give you a visualization of Snow Water Equivalent and Deviation from Normal Snow Water Equivalent.