Jay Honeck wrote:
Initially I
thought that Rick's suggestion of allowing at least 5 hours in the
future was reasonable, but as I was writing this note, maybe not going
up at all on days such as today would be a better decision.

Slightly OT, but recently some of us were talking at the airport about
how remarkably accurate the damned weathermen have been this winter.
It's been uncanny how they have been successfully predicting major
winter storms days in advance with near-100% accuracy.

Dunno if they have a new computer model, or what, but our jokes about
the weatherman have fallen flat this winter. They've been dead-nuts
on, much to our dismay.

Hi Jay,

I don't know if this will help you out, but it has helped me out in
understanding how forecasters develop their forecast products.

I live in the Tacoma/Seattle area. The address of our Weather Forecast
Office (WFO) is:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/sew/

On the left side of the page is a "Discussion/Text" link under the
"Forecast" part of the site. I started using this link a couple of
years ago. After reading it, I developed a better understanding of the
why/how the forecasters developed their forecasts. If you happen to
check this page out, you will notice a link that says:

Enhanced Graphical Area Forecast Discussion now available

This link provides a better quality version of our local forecast
discussion, to include graphics. Please check it out.

As I was rummaging around, I wanted to see if there was a similar page
at your WFO (Quad Cities). I ran across the following page, with a
little help from Google.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/product_site...VN&product=AFD

I finally was able to zero in on a page that you folks in Iowa City
might find useful. Please give the following link a check (and bookmark
it if you want):

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/product.php?...D&issuedby=DVN

It may take some time to read and understand the discussions. However,
I think you'll get the hang of it.

Hope this answers your questions.

Rick