Because the weather can effect construction work — and planning for it — it can help to know what’s on the way. Here’s a real-time weather radar site, http://www.intellicast.com/National/Radar/Current.aspx?region=default, that we find geographically accurate, detailed, versatile and about as localized as you can get for any location in the United States.

Actually, intellicast.com offers a number of options, starting with the radar view for the continental U.S. (below). You can zoom in to your area using a drop-down box or a “Pan and Zoom” button, which allows you to zoom down enough to see individual, clearly labeled roads and large landmarks. The view above, showing heavy rains moving into Des Moines, Iowa, is at roughly half of the zoom-in capability of the site.

The movement of storms can be seen in real time using the “Play Animation” button. Using the interactive features of the site through the “Layers” and “Overlays” buttons enables you to see the temperatures, clouds and snow cover in a selected area, as well as the location of such things as wild fires and recent earthquakes.

if you care about the weather, this one’s worth a bookmark.