Baron Lynx’s recent updates are streamlining how meteorologists access unique weather data to create impactful weather stories. We unveiled the newest Lynx release at the National Association of Broadcasters Conference, which generated enthusiastic reactions from existing clients and potential new users.
One of the standout updates is the addition and support for two highly sought-after data products: River Gauges and Flight Delays. Another highlight of the newest release is that Baron now hosts the information on the cloud to ensure seamless, effortless access when downloading this information for various templates.
Floods and Flights
The frequency of flooding across the United States is increasing, costing billions of dollars in infrastructure damage and property loss annually.
“The river data for these gauges plays a crucial role in conveying the flooding and safety narrative,” said Baron Weather Director of Broadcast Meteorology and Customer Experience Steve Bray. "Especially when there’s population growth in flood-prone areas. Many people can be affected,” he said.
The river gauge product allows users to display river levels nationwide or within the vicinity of their viewership. Additional templates enable users to display and interact with maps nationally or by region and real-time river information in graph or text form.
Another exciting addition displays airport interruptions for commercial airports within the US. Users can add multi-city airport status with individual airport delay information, graphics, and national/regional maps that reveal flight delays.
“Having that data and being able to display it so easily and readily is very powerful,” said Bray. “When we’ve shown this capability to Lynx users or prospects, they say, ‘Wow, this is amazing. We've never had this before.’”
Charting the Course
To make this update happen, Baron identified the kind of templates a user would use and created a system to pull in new types of local data valuable for the user’s area, “so users no longer have to map their spreadsheet and go through a plotting process,” said Bray.
By automating the retrieval of data feeds and simplifying the process of displaying tabular information, Lynx users can focus on quickly creating compelling content without the burden of manual data mapping.
“Baron’s templates and cloud hosting of this data means we’re able to remove the ‘heavy lifting’ for users while enhancing storytelling capabilities,” he said.
Content, Content, Content!
These days, many stations are starving for content, having to broadcast more news during more hours of the day than ever. Beyond weather-related content, the versatility of Lynx templates opens endless possibilities for creating interactive maps for various purposes. This flexibility has sparked excitement among station owners, meteorologists, and news producers, who see the potential for innovative storytelling beyond traditional weather reporting.
“An example of using this capability beyond weather is creating a map of where the polling places are across Chicago during the elections,” he said. Or charting where crime incidents have occurred across a city—anything that can be geolocated database-driven.”
Generating ideas for Lynx updates and improvements involves a collaborative approach involving input from internal staff and users. Baron’s goal for Lynx is to continually evolve the platform to meet its users' diverse needs.
Open communication and user feedback play a crucial role in driving innovation and enhancing the user experience,” said Bray. “After all, it doesn’t mean anything to the customer unless they can actually take advantage of it.”
Current Baron Lynx customers should contact Support at
broadcast.support@baronweather.com. to schedule the upgrade or ask questions.
