Martin,
In trying to understand the basics of of what underlies Dr. Jack's
forecast, I also look at the following site (Link is on the good
Doctor's page at the bottom:
http://www-frd.fsl.noaa.gov/mab/soundings/java/
The advantage I see in this NOAA site is in the direct depiction of
"virtual soundings" for every hour of the forecast day. The site
predicts the air mass structure with temps, dew points and winds for
an airport of your choice, in my case Aurora (ARR), Illinois. The
little Java applet that loads with the page allows you to 'hover' your
pointer on the graph at your local altitude and predicted temperature.
Upon clicking, the program draws the dry and wet adiabates, showing
cloud bases and temperature spread. I usually look at the hours from
12PM to 6PM and get at very good idea of how the day is shaping up and
when it's dying.
Being so close to Lake Michigan I appreciate of course the mapping of
all the other parameters on Dr. Jack's site in determining what area
to fly in.
Herb Kilian, J7

(Martin Hellman) wrote in message
...Blipmap has proven to be the most useful thermal forecast tool most of
us (all of us?) have ever used. Compared to Reno FSS' soaring
forecast, which gives a single number for updraft strength and top,
blipmap shows where to find the lift. And, it's more accurate than
anything else I've seen. Early on, when Reno FSS' soaring forecast was
predicting 1500 fpm to 18k, and blipmap was predicting a poor day, I
had trouble getting over 10k out of Minden. Chalk up one for blipmap.
And many others have posted similar experience....