Another Weather Forecasting Tool

[markjob]

I am fascinated by the number of weather forecasting tools (apps, whatever) available.

At the April MAS Monthly meeting Jerry Jones made a great presentation on weather. Very nice job covering the various sites, the good, the not-so-good, in the end we can all agree when it is cloudy all the sites agree. I am still looking for a tool for planning a few days in the future. I sometimes have trouble finding an agreement. Well I am posting another site I have come across in my obsession with weather and weather forecasting.

This is site is different. I have not spent too much time with it yet but I will and I will provide an update on my findings.

The site: https://spotwx.com

Please post your thoughts. Good, bad, otherwise, etc.

Mark

[tugger]

Seems that some have different information versus others? I'm on my phone but noticed one Canadian forecast has cloud cover while an American has visibility. Do those mean the same thing but worded differently?

I'll look more when I get on a computer.

[jjones7777]

The whole weather forecasting thing seems - even for the pros - a bit of a mystery. Chaos Theory.

I've come to the conclusion that when NOAA gives a lower percentage of cloud cover and Clear Sky Clock give darker blue boxes for cloud cover and lighter blue boxes for transparency - they are talking about the same thing: high cirrus clouds. Clear Outside seems to be doing a pretty good job of delineating the difference between the three levels of clouds since - which is important since as astronomers, we deal with them differently. Yes, Mark - I'm coming more and more to appreciate Clear Outside - thanks for clarifying there they get their data.

Mark - your new tool is an interesting one. I'm going to have to spend some time with it - it seems to have a fairly high learning curve. Planetary Boundary Layer??

[bhamil]

This is an interesting topic. It seems all of us have our personal go-to websites for forecasts. I tend not to do deep analysis and just use the clear sky chart and AccuWeather Astronomy. However, if you want to go deeper, I know some of the Kitt Peak astronomers are using windy.com to evaluate the weather. I'm not sure if that website has come up on on prior posts, but wanted to mention that to the group. FYI.