Favorite weather sites

[Superman32 0]

What are your favorite weather sites?
I'm looking for one that gives me a good winds aloft forcast.

Here are my 2 favorite sites

#1 - Usairnet

#2 - Weather Underground

for long term forcast (but not nearly as reliable as the 2 above)
Accuweather

Inveniam Viam aut Faciam
I'm back biatches!

[tombuch 0]

I like Weatherunderground too.

For official winds aloft, try the NOAA site at: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/. Click on "Aviation" under forecasts on the left, then select "winds/temps" (Text).
.

Tom Buchanan
Instructor Emeritus
Comm Pilot MSEL,G
Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

[Superman32 0]

I have found that Usainet to give >90% accuracy on their forcasts, but unfortunately no winds aloft forcast

Inveniam Viam aut Faciam
I'm back biatches!

[indyz 1]

Quote

I have found that Usainet to give >90% accuracy on their forcasts, but unfortunately no winds aloft forcast

USairnet is just a prettier representation of the NOAA forecasts that Tom linked to. The actually do have winds aloft forecasts, it's just not integrated with the main forecast (see here).

[sid 1]

how do you interpret this Tom? (I never claimed to be the sharpest knife on the chandelier)
SYR 3331 3430-11 3334-15 3233-19

Pete Draper,

Just because my life plan is written on the back of a Hooter's Napkin, it's still a life plan.... right?

[gemini 0]

http://www.Intellicast.com is pretty good too.

Blue skies,

Jim

[tombuch 0]

Quote

how do you interpret this Tom? (I never claimed to be the sharpest knife on the chandelier)
SYR 3331 3430-11 3334-15 3233-19

The reported winds are for Syracuse. At 3,000 they are from 330 at 31 knots, at 6,000 they are from 340 at 30 knots with a temperature of -11, at 9,000 they are from 330 at 34 knots and the temperature is -15, at 12,000 they are from 320 at 33 knots and the temperature is -19. My general impression of these winds is that they are consistent in terms of direction and speed, and they are a bit high at 3,000 feet, but not seriously so.

For more help see the attached document that is included in the print version of the S&TA features at The Ranch, but not yet on the web.
.

Tom Buchanan
Instructor Emeritus
Comm Pilot MSEL,G
Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

[Mike111 0]

www.bbc.co.uk

[Andybilly 0]

For the UK I find http://www.metcheck.com/ to be the most accurate

[laraatalti2 0]

skydivingweather.com!

[kevinwhelan 0]

metcheck.com

"be honest with yourself. Why do I want to go smaller? It is not going to make my penis longer." ~Brian Germain, on downsizing

[velvetjo 0]

Try ADDS. It's my favorite for aviation weather & forecasts. The java tools are very nice.

Lance

[tdog 0]

1-800-WX-Brief for the FAA Flight Service Center.

Follow instructions to get pre-recorded messages...

The service center you go to seems to be dependant on the area code of the phone in which you call... In Colorado, I choose to play the "Wave Soaring Forecast" and the "Hot Air Balloon" forecast. Not only will the winds aloft help in both forecasts, but you can use things like the "K Index" to determine how stable the atmosphere is...

[sky-pimp 0]

easy to use site for uk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/ukweather/

i just look out the window normally

YeHaaaaaaaaaaa

[Eule 0]

Since I'm in the US, I like to use the NOAA/NWS sites. They seem to
be fairly accurate, and I'm paying for them anyway, so why not get
some use out of them? In other countries, I would try the national
weather office first, for the same reason.

Mainly what I look at is:

- The normal local forecast. Go to http://www.srh.noaa.gov/
and punch in the city,state in the box at the left. Even though that's
the "Southern Region", it will bring up forecasts for the entire US.
Most local forecast offices will give you a wind forecast up to a couple
of days out; some offices will go as much as a week out on the winds.

- The forecast discussion. It will be linked from the lower right corner
of the local forecast above. This is where the guy who made the
forecast takes a couple of paragraphs to explain his thinking. From
this you can tell things like "it's for sure going to rain everywhere
within 50 miles of the dropzone" or "where the clouds end up are
totally dependent on how far south the front comes and right now
I'm guessing on the front." It will also give you details on when a
front will pass, which usually coincides with a wind change.

- The radar and satellite images. These are thumbnailed on the local
forecast page above and linked to bigger images. The radar shows
you precipitation and the infrared satellite shows you clouds.

- METARs for the closest airport to the dropzone. This mostly tells
you the current and recent conditions. When METARs were invented,
they were designed to be sent by Teletype. Apparently, each letter
cost eighteen million dollars to send, so the actual METAR is kind of
cryptic. Many sites will decode them into English for you. I use
http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/metars/ . If you
don't know the airport code, get the local forecast for the nearest
town - quite often the current weather comes from an airport that's
at least in the same county. You can then look up the airport code
by the airport name at http://www.airnav.com/ .

- Wind profiler data. This will show you what the winds aloft are and
have recently been, and the resolution is finer than every 3000
feet. However, if there is a solid cloud deck, you won't get much
info above the clouds. This is more useful in the Midwest, because
there are a lot of profilers there for some reason. Start at
http://www.profiler.noaa.gov/npn/profiler.jsp , click a
colored spot on the map to pick a profiler, then set what you want
at the right. I usually change the defaults to "left to right", "PNG
(best)", and "L 1000x750". Note that the resulting chart has
altitude in kilometers and wind velocities in meters per
second. 1 km is about 3280 (3300) feet and 5 m/s is about
11 mph or 9.8 knots.

In general - get used to slightly weird units. Also get familiar with
what your local offset is from Zulu time/UTC, because most of the
weather stuff is given that way. If you're in the US, you won't be
too far off by assuming that UTC is about five or six hours later
than the local time, but it's easy to find out what it is exactly. Yes,
this changes with daylight savings time.

I think it would be really cool to have a wind profiler at every DZ.
However, only about one company makes them and they don't say
how much they cost on their Web site so they're probably not $19.95
or even $1995. When I get bored I toy with the idea of buying some
$40 microwave ovens at Wally World and trying to make a wind profiler
radar out of them (without nuking myself). :)

Eule

PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

[Eule 0]

Quote

For more help see the attached document that is included in the print version of the S&TA features at The Ranch, but not yet on the web.

That's a good write-up. For those that don't do RTF, here it is as a post:

Quote

Obtaining and Reading a Computer Winds Aloft Forecast

Go to the AWC/NCEP Winds Aloft Forecast page at: http://aviationweather.gov/products/nws/winds/
and click on the Northeast for the 6, 12, or 24 hour wind forecast. For an interpretive key, click on the word "INFO" in the blue title box at the top of the page.

Sample Winds Aloft Forecast:

FDUE01 KWBC 211407

DATA BASED ON 211200Z

VALID 211800Z   FOR USE 1700-2100Z. TEMPS NEG ABV 24000


FT  3000    6000   9000    12000   18000   24000  30000 34000  39000

BDL 2612 2919+06 2823+01 2827+00 2944-14 2958-26 308642 810249 308554

BGR 2820 3028+05 3131+00 3033-05 3043-17 3048-29 295647 296153 296151

CAR 2921 3229+03 3130-02 3134-07 3148-19 3164-30 307147 306954 304648

PWM 2718 3023+05 3122+01 3029-03 3038-16 2941-30 306944 297953 297050

EMI 1916 2420+09 2826+06 2932+01 2739-11 2840-22 294737 296146 316256

ACK 2720 2825+06 3024+03 2930+00 2939-14 2951-27 307743 308251 298051

BOS 2718 2924+06 3024+01 2930-01 2937-15 2950-28 308243 308952 308051

BML 2820 2926+04 3128+00 3030-03 2937-17 2837-30 296244 297153 296751

ACY 2214 2714+07 2926+05 3031+01 2837-11 2845-22 305739 317647 296857

ALB 2611 2818+06 2821+00 2826-01 2946-14 2960-27 298642 810749 308654

BUF 2318 2422+07 2623+02 2832-01 2746-13 2757-24 286240 298249 308754

JFK 2413 2618+06 2828+04 2930+00 2942-11 2954-24 307140 329048 307255

PLB 2615 2727+05 3021+00 2924-03 2837-17 2850-30 297945 298751 297752

SYR 2410 2419+06 2725+02 2831-02 2848-14 2863-25 297341 309749 308055

CLE 2017 2417+10 2728+06 2732+00 2637-12 2647-22 266338 287547 298254

CMH 1911 2312+12 2627+07 2633+01 2633-11 2644-21 265436 287045 286354

CVG 1809 2115+13 2423+08 2429+02 2630-10 2743-20 265336 276546 266354

AGC 2007 2314+11 2726+05 2729+01 2737-11 2742-22 275437 296547 297555

AVP 2313 2314+06 2826+04 2931+00 2842-12 2853-24 296740 318549 317555

PSB      2518+09 2725+04 2930+01 2738-12 2744-23 285738 297247 317455

ORF 1808 3007+10 3024+06 3022+02 2830-09 2843-20 295435 295045 305056

RIC 1912 2617+10 2924+06 2924+02 2733-10 2842-20 294535 294445 304655

ROA 1815 2320+13 2718+07 2718+03 2734-10 2746-20 284934 284745 284355

CRW 1807 2212+14 2617+08 2623+02 2635-10 2646-20 275034 285145 284955

EKN      2115+12 2720+07 2731+02 2636-11 2742-21 274535 285346 295855

These reports are based on a 24 hour clock and are listed in Zulu time (Z), which is the same at UTC time, or Greenwich Mean Time. The Ranch is in the Eastern Time zone and is 4 hours behind UTC in the summer, and 5 hours behind in the winter. 2300Z is 1900L in the summer, or 7:00 PM. This conversion is a bit of a brain pain, but not really that tough.

Determine when the forecast you are looking was prepared by reading the DATA BASED ON line. The first two numbers represent the day of the month, for example, 21 is the twentyfirst day of that month. The next four numbers represent the time the forecast was prepared expressed in
UTC or Zulu time, for example 1200Z represents noon UTC time, or 0800 local time, that's 8:00 AM. This step isn't super critical. You will always be given the most current report available.

Determine the valid times by reading the VALID line. Again, the first two digits represent the day of the month, and the next four digits represent the time on a 24 hour clock in UTC. If a 24 hour forecast extends to the next day, the valid day may be one digit ahead of today. For example, a
forecast that EXPIRES at 1:00 AM on the forth day of the month will usually be marked with a valid date of 04, even though it may begin at 2:00 PM on the third day.

Determine the effective time for the forecast by reading the FOR USE line. These are key numbers and knowing how to read and interpret them is important. The valid time will always be between the effective times.

Find the appropriate reporting point in the left hand column. Use one or more of the following:

BDL is Bradley airport in Connecticut. It is 77 miles east of The Ranch.
ALB is Albany airport in New York. It is 76 miles north of The Ranch.
JFK is Kennedy airport in New York. It is 73 miles south of The Ranch.
AVP is Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, PA. It is 85 miles west of The Ranch.

Select one reporting point, or average a few. Telephone briefers will usually favor Albany or JFK, or will sometimes split the two. Wilkes-Barre is West of The Ranch, and that is usually where our weather comes from, so it is generally a good selection too. Keep in mind the winds aloft forecast is just a forecast based on a computer model that projects the wind at several points. It is NOT super accurate, so any rounding or reporting point selection errors will generally not be a big deal.

At the 3,000 foot level the first two digits represent the direction of the wind in degrees true, the second two digits represent the speed in knots. Direction is always rounded to the nearest 10 degrees, and then the last zero is deleted. So, 3020 means the wind is from 300 at 20 knots. 0416 means the wind is from 40 degrees at 16 knots.

If wind is forecasted to be light and variable with speeds below five knots, the entry will be coded as 9900.

At all levels above 3,000 feet the winds are reported using the same 4 digit code, but the columns also includes temperature, expressed as degrees Celsius. Keep in mind that zero is freezing, so a temperature of plus 20 is above freezing (20 C is actually 68 F).

At and above 24,000 feet the temperatures are always assumed to be negative, so the plus or minus sign is deleted from the report.

The report includes winds up to 39,000 feet. There are some weird coding things that happen when the wind is faster than 100 knots, and they may be included on printed forecasts, but we shouldn't need to think about those issues in the skydiving world.

PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

[Trivial_Trekker 0]

For you CANADIANS
Here is a good weather site used for aviation flight planning,

http://www.flightplanning.navcanada.ca

and if you have any problems understanding the format or pretty much any details go to this website...

http://www.tc.gc.ca/CivilAviation/publications/tp14371/MET/1-0.htm


The METARS and TAFS can be put in plain language.

[]DETE

[piisfish 140]

www.windguru.cz it's mainly for windsurfing, but some places like Sant Pere Pescador in Spain is a mile away from Empuriabrava. I always check it if I am going there, and also check it for a validation of my alcohol consumption at night during Tramontana periods

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[LittleDJ 0]

AAAARRHH, bbc.co.uk is EVIL!!! it always predicts the winds as lower and rarely gets the weather right for my DZ, it can say rain, yet its fine!! i always use 2 or three and compare, usually www.weather.co.uk, or www.metoffice.co.uk(not that these are any good to anyone outside the UK)

***********************************
LittleDJ!!- There is no such thing as a perfectly good aircraft!!!