SkySight Soaring Weather Forecasting

On Thursday, 15 February 2018 16:26:37 UTC+11, Thomas Van de Velde wrote:
SkySight is initiated from the GFS, like most other soaring weather tools.. They interpolate points between the relatively coarse-grained native grid points to provide a sense of precision on Google maps. While this looks very nice, I look forward to ECMWF support on a global scale, and HRRR support in the US.

Hello all,

GFS is not our only source of initialisation data - we integrate directly a number of other sources too. To suggest we simply interpolate is a bit too much of a simplification, we run a model ourselves at a higher resolution using that initialisation data. The sense of precision is 'real' Interpolation would not deliver you the results pilots mention above about the quality of our convergence and wave forecasts.

ECMWF, like GFS, has inadequate resolution (amongst other issues) for direct usage for (most) soaring forecasts. We are considering plotting ECMWF and GFS globally for coverage outside the areas we run our own models anyway.

We are actually experimenting with ECMWF as an initialisation source. If it provides measurable improvement we will utilise it for regions where it does so.
As for HRRR, our model is very similar to HRRR and we typically see negligible differences outside of the aspects we have special tuned for soaring. So we don't see much benefit there.

I believe Naviter is working on some improvements to SeeYou's weather downloads. In the meantime I suggest avoiding setting "Download Everything", as there's a lot of data!

For more details, visit us at the SSA convention in Reno! We will have an announcement regarding our Central US coverage there too.

Cheers,
Matthew
Lead Developer @ SkySight

On Thursday, 15 February 2018 05:01:12 UTC-7, wrote:
On Thursday, 15 February 2018 16:26:37 UTC+11, Thomas Van de Velde wrote:
SkySight is initiated from the GFS, like most other soaring weather tools. They interpolate points between the relatively coarse-grained native grid points to provide a sense of precision on Google maps. While this looks very nice, I look forward to ECMWF support on a global scale, and HRRR support in the US.

Hello all,

GFS is not our only source of initialisation data - we integrate directly a number of other sources too. To suggest we simply interpolate is a bit too much of a simplification, we run a model ourselves at a higher resolution using that initialisation data. The sense of precision is 'real' Interpolation would not deliver you the results pilots mention above about the quality of our convergence and wave forecasts.

ECMWF, like GFS, has inadequate resolution (amongst other issues) for direct usage for (most) soaring forecasts. We are considering plotting ECMWF and GFS globally for coverage outside the areas we run our own models anyway..

We are actually experimenting with ECMWF as an initialisation source. If it provides measurable improvement we will utilise it for regions where it does so.
As for HRRR, our model is very similar to HRRR and we typically see negligible differences outside of the aspects we have special tuned for soaring. So we don't see much benefit there.

I believe Naviter is working on some improvements to SeeYou's weather downloads. In the meantime I suggest avoiding setting "Download Everything", as there's a lot of data!

For more details, visit us at the SSA convention in Reno! We will have an announcement regarding our Central US coverage there too.

Cheers,
Matthew
Lead Developer @ SkySight

In Northern UT the forecasts have been quite accurate. The convergence (wave) predictions are great,

Support from Mathew has top notch, I have had a few questions on how to interpret the data and response has been quick and complete.

torstai 15. helmikuuta 2018 14.01.12 UTC+2 kirjoitti:

We are actually experimenting with ECMWF as an initialisation source. If it provides measurable improvement we will utilise it for regions where it does so.


Wow, I thought ECMWF boundaries would cost arm and leg to use commercially. I bet it provides measurable improvement, it is the best model currently available and on different level than GFS. Now if someone would run ensemble of RASP using ECMWF ENS members as boundaries, we would get usable thermal forecasts for next week instead of 2 days...

On Friday, 16 February 2018 03:18:30 UTC+13, krasw wrote:
torstai 15. helmikuuta 2018 14.01.12 UTC+2 kirjoitti:

We are actually experimenting with ECMWF as an initialisation source. If it provides measurable improvement we will utilise it for regions where it does so.


Wow, I thought ECMWF boundaries would cost arm and leg to use commercially. I bet it provides measurable improvement, it is the best model currently available and on different level than GFS. Now if someone would run ensemble of RASP using ECMWF ENS members as boundaries, we would get usable thermal forecasts for next week instead of 2 days...

We run the WRF model with EC data. It is noticeably better - there are many more levels and the horizontal resolution we get is at 0.1 degrees vs the 0.25 for the GFS/GDAS. In addition, the EC analyses and forecasts are generally a lot better.

On Thursday, 22 March 2018 13:50:09 UTC+13, wrote:
On Friday, 16 February 2018 03:18:30 UTC+13, krasw wrote:
torstai 15. helmikuuta 2018 14.01.12 UTC+2 kirjoitti:

We are actually experimenting with ECMWF as an initialisation source. If it provides measurable improvement we will utilise it for regions where it does so.


Wow, I thought ECMWF boundaries would cost arm and leg to use commercially. I bet it provides measurable improvement, it is the best model currently available and on different level than GFS. Now if someone would run ensemble of RASP using ECMWF ENS members as boundaries, we would get usable thermal forecasts for next week instead of 2 days...

We run the WRF model with EC data. It is noticeably better - there are many more levels and the horizontal resolution we get is at 0.1 degrees vs the 0.25 for the GFS/GDAS. In addition, the EC analyses and forecasts are generally a lot better.

PS. It isn't cheap.

On Thursday, March 22, 2018 at 10:21:01 AM UTC+9:30, wrote:
On Thursday, 22 March 2018 13:50:09 UTC+13, wrote:
On Friday, 16 February 2018 03:18:30 UTC+13, krasw wrote:
torstai 15. helmikuuta 2018 14.01.12 UTC+2 kirjoitti:

We are actually experimenting with ECMWF as an initialisation source. If it provides measurable improvement we will utilise it for regions where it does so.


Wow, I thought ECMWF boundaries would cost arm and leg to use commercially. I bet it provides measurable improvement, it is the best model currently available and on different level than GFS. Now if someone would run ensemble of RASP using ECMWF ENS members as boundaries, we would get usable thermal forecasts for next week instead of 2 days...

We run the WRF model with EC data. It is noticeably better - there are many more levels and the horizontal resolution we get is at 0.1 degrees vs the 0.25 for the GFS/GDAS. In addition, the EC analyses and forecasts are generally a lot better.

PS. It isn't cheap.

Hi,
I didn't see this thread alive again earlier, but as Paul/Jim deduced the forecast completed on the next run.
As to ECMWF, we are still testing. It's not so clear cut that it performs better for short term soaring forecasts due to their output intervals and timing. Contact me offlist if you want to know more.
Cheers,
Matthew

wrote on 2/15/2018 4:01 AM:
For more details, visit us at the SSA convention in Reno! We will have an announcement regarding our Central US coverage there too.

Cheers,
Matthew
Lead Developer @ SkySight

Excellent! I look forward to meeting you at Reno.

Eric Greenwell

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
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