SkySight Soaring Weather Forecasting

[Paul Remde]

Soaring Friends,

I am very pleased to be working with Matthew Scutter to promote his impressive SkySight soaring weather forecast service.

Buy 12 months of service for $79 and get 2 extra months for FREE.

Works great with SeeYou for PC (current subscriptions to both SkySight and SeeYou for PC required).

Great for planning your cross-country soaring task - for today or several days in advance, or planning wave adventures.

Details: www.cumulus-soaring.com/skysight.htm

A nice overview video is available on that site.

I've been playing with it and I'm very impressed! It is intuitive and powerful.

Good Soaring,

Paul Remde
Cumulus Soaring, Inc.

[Daniel Sazhin[_2_]]

On Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at 11:30:51 PM UTC-5, Paul Remde wrote:
> Soaring Friends,
>
> I am very pleased to be working with Matthew Scutter to promote his impressive SkySight soaring weather forecast service.
>
> Buy 12 months of service for $79 and get 2 extra months for FREE.
>
> Works great with SeeYou for PC (current subscriptions to both SkySight and SeeYou for PC required).
>
> Great for planning your cross-country soaring task - for today or several days in advance, or planning wave adventures.
>
> Details: www.cumulus-soaring.com/skysight.htm
>
> A nice overview video is available on that site.
>
> I've been playing with it and I'm very impressed! It is intuitive and powerful.
>
> Good Soaring,
>
> Paul Remde
> Cumulus Soaring, Inc.

Best wave/converegence forecasting platform I've worked with.

All the best,
Daniel

[Tony[_5_]]

i have been having trouble getting the forecasts to show up on SeeYou. I upgraded laptops at the last SeeYou update since they, without warning, quit supporting Windows XP. Matt thinks the issue is on their side but it just takes for ev er for the forecasts to load, and it seems i have to load the entire world to get anything. Has anyone else had this issue?

I made really good use of TopMeteo in SeeYou for planning purposes last year. Was looking forward to having both forecasts in SeeYou so that I could have even more doubt and uncertainty before going flying.

[Ron Gleason]

On Wednesday, 14 February 2018 10:07:11 UTC-7, Tony wrote:
> i have been having trouble getting the forecasts to show up on SeeYou. I upgraded laptops at the last SeeYou update since they, without warning, quit supporting Windows XP. Matt thinks the issue is on their side but it just takes for ev er for the forecasts to load, and it seems i have to load the entire world to get anything. Has anyone else had this issue?
>
> I made really good use of TopMeteo in SeeYou for planning purposes last year. Was looking forward to having both forecasts in SeeYou so that I could have even more doubt and uncertainty before going flying.

I have experienced the same issue with slow loading forecasts, clicking on the Skysight icon at startup shows all world wide data loading. Nothing on the Naviter site.

[Renny[_2_]]

On Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at 9:30:51 PM UTC-7, Paul Remde wrote:
> Soaring Friends,
>
> I am very pleased to be working with Matthew Scutter to promote his impressive SkySight soaring weather forecast service.
>
> Buy 12 months of service for $79 and get 2 extra months for FREE.
>
> Works great with SeeYou for PC (current subscriptions to both SkySight and SeeYou for PC required).
>
> Great for planning your cross-country soaring task - for today or several days in advance, or planning wave adventures.
>
> Details: www.cumulus-soaring.com/skysight.htm
>
> A nice overview video is available on that site.
>
> I've been playing with it and I'm very impressed! It is intuitive and powerful.
>
> Good Soaring,
>
> Paul Remde
> Cumulus Soaring, Inc.

For what it is worth, I used SkySight for Moriarty, NM forecasts for all of 2017 and I thought the forecasts were excellent. I've used many weather forecasting services over the years and no weather forecasting system is perfect, but I thought that SkySight was generally very accurate. I also thought the convergence forecasts were very useful (as we often get convergence in central New Mexico) and those "predictions" were the best I had seen!
Thx - Renny

[MNLou]

Does SkySight cover the upper midwest yet?

If not, any plans to do that in the future?

Lou

[Paul Remde]

Hi Lou,

SkySight doesn't cover the upper-central part of the U.S. yet, but they are working on it. They don't have a firm date, but hope to have it working very soon. They seemed optimistic that it would be working by spring in the USA.

Best Regards,

Paul Remde
Cumulus Soaring, Inc.

On Wednesday, February 14, 2018 at 1:34:13 PM UTC-6, MNLou wrote:
> Does SkySight cover the upper midwest yet?
>
> If not, any plans to do that in the future?
>
> Lou

[Thomas Van de Velde]

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.

[[email protected]]

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

[Ron Gleason]

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.

[krasw]

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...

[Eric Greenwell[_4_]]

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)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorgliders/publications/download-the-guide-1
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Dec 2014a" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm

http://soaringsafety.org/prevention/Guide-to-transponders-in-sailplanes-2014A.pdf

[WaltWX[_2_]]

FYI...

I will be presenting at the SSA Convention Reno 9am March 1st:

"Soaring Forecasting – Models and Websites UPDATE"

Will be comparing Skysight.io, XCSkies, and TopMeteo ... special mention to RASP and Paul Scorer's work. This will include Pros/Cons of each service and updates since my February 2017 Soaring magazine article.

I'll also show the latest web sites for modeling output, radar, GOES-16,17 imagery... the latest and best. Plus my take on "Weather in the Cockpit - 2018".

Bernd Fisher will use some of my time to talk about TopMeteo

Matthew Scutter will be presenting on Skysight.io Friday Mar 2nd, 11am

Walt Rogers WX

PS - If you are driving to Reno.. please check latest forecasts. Good chance of snow - Tue through Thursday.

[Paul Agnew]

Is anyone else having trouble getting Skysight to display the forecast models for Saturday March 24, 2018?

I can get Friday and Sunday, but Saturday comes up blank for the entire US East sector. US West appears normal.

Paul A.

[[email protected]]

"Saturday comes up blank for the entire US East sector"

Paul- Maybe it is color-coded. White means "snow." Grab yer snowblower and put a tow hitch on it.

[Paul Agnew]

On Wednesday, March 21, 2018 at 10:36:51 AM UTC-4, wrote:
> "Saturday comes up blank for the entire US East sector"
>
> Paul- Maybe it is color-coded. White means "snow." Grab yer snowblower and put a tow hitch on it.

No snow down here in Vero Beach, Florida...just a lot of snowbirds glued to the Weather Channel. ;-)

Seriously, Saturday has no data whatsoever. I sent an email to Skysight alerting them to the anomaly.

Paul A

[Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot)]

Reminds me of decades ago at a contest (nationals?) in Elmira.
We all sat (I was crew) in the main hanger with a tin roof.
The speaker phone had a met guy talking about the day's forecast, we had to run the volume up on the speaker phone to hear him due to the pounding rain echoing in the hanger as he pronounced, "clear skies, nice CU, go for speed!".
Someone asked him to go look out a window.......a couple minutes later, he stated he needed to review the data......
Windows (of the glass kind, not PC) can be a good thing at times.
;-)
LOL......

[Jonathan St. Cloud]

On Wednesday, March 21, 2018 at 7:18:48 AM UTC-7, Paul Agnew wrote:
> Is anyone else having trouble getting Skysight to display the forecast models for Saturday March 24, 2018?
>
> I can get Friday and Sunday, but Saturday comes up blank for the entire US East sector. US West appears normal.
>
> Paul A.

I have been having trouble getting the "Potential Flight Distance" to display once I paid for the year :) Probably just bad timing, but it has been a week now that the above does not display.

[JS[_5_]]

It's all working up to Thursday 29 March for me. Could have been fixed in the last few hours?
Matthew is very responsive, but spends most of his time in a different time zone to those in the USA.
Jim

[Paul Agnew]

No joy. I've been trying since yesterday, but the Saturday dataset is still missing as of 5pm EDT. The last update was 2:49pm EDT. I'm hoping it does a master data refresh and reruns the algorithms at some point.

Paul A.

[JS[_5_]]

Sorry, should have specified US West was working. East has a blank for Saturday. May be just missing data in the in the current forecast 2:49pm EDT? Try US East again in a few hours.
Jim

[JS[_5_]]

Sat 24 March is now working in US East with the 6:43pm forecast.
Jim

[[email protected]]

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.

[[email protected]]

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.

[[email protected]]

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