On Sunday, October 30, 2016 at 6:22:26 PM UTC-4, WaltWX wrote:
I am interested in hear U.S. glider pilot comments on the pros/cons of all these sites for soaring forecasts. I have used them all at one time or another and find them generally comparable. But, some like RASP and DrJack do a much better job of locating convergence zones/shear lines. Geo-referencing data and ease of use varies a lot. The biggest difficulty is that archive and looking at past forecasts makes it difficult to do inter comparisons.

Your inputs will valuable to me as I am in the process of writing an article for Soaring magazine discussing the basic of Numerical Weather Prediction and how it relates to these soaring web sites.

Walt Rogers WX

I like Dr Jack's forecast but if you compare the forecast high temperature to a commercial forecast it seems very often to use 4°F too low of a high temperature for the day. The really makes the Hcrit / top of lift to be too pessimistic. Has anyone else noticed this?
If you look at the "Thermal Hgt. Variability", often it make sense to just assume the more positive end of the spectrum, to get a more accurate forecast.

I also use TopMeteo, it is nice, but i perfer how Dr Jack shows the graphic for Hcrit. In TopMeteo you have to read the thermal height in numbers and it is harder to see it as a map instead of text. This makes it harder to get an overview of higher and lower thermal heights.

It would be really nice if TopMeteo would have an option to show the interstate highway system and maybe a few more gliderports on the maps so you know where everything is.

Chris