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Forecasts come from the National Weather Service's own computer models, and current conditions from the nearest reporting weather station. Both are served through the weather API. A forecast is guidance, not a warning, and anything the Weather Service has actually issued is on the live map.
Ames sits at 42.0263°N, 93.6213°W in Story County, Iowa. The forecast above is drawn for that point from the National Weather Service's own computer models: a seven-day outlook, and a finer-grained one covering the next eighteen hours where it reaches, and the radar and alert panels show what the Weather Service has out over the area right now.
Place data from the US Census Bureau. Coordinates are the Census internal point for Ames, and the forecast is for that location, not for every address inside the city limits, and a large city can have real weather differences from one side to the other.
The nearest Doppler radar is KDMX (Des Moines, IA), 21 miles to the SSW. A WSR-88D's lowest routine scan sits half a degree above horizontal, and the earth curves away beneath it, so by the time that beam reaches Ames its centre is about 1,200 ft above ground. That is about as close as radar coverage gets in the United States: the lowest scan is still near the ground when it reaches Ames, so low-level rotation and the leading edge of a gust front show up on it. Ames is closer to its radar than 83% of US cities.
The closest instrument actually measuring the air is KAMW · Ames Muni on the ASOS/AWOS network, 2.5 miles away. Close enough that its readings are, for practical purposes, the conditions in town.
Beam height is the standard 4/3-earth approximation for the 0.5° scan and assumes normal refraction; it is where the centre of the beam is, not its edges, and unusual temperature profiles bend it. Radar siting from the NWS WSR-88D network, station positions from the Iowa observing network as of this build.
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