SSA 2018 - Weather Presentations

[WaltWX[_2_]]

My presentation at SSA 2018 Reno are posted on:

ssa.org -> Member Resources -> Weather -> news (publicly available)

....or....

http://www.ssa.org/SoaringWeather?show=blog&id=4525

Besides the presentation, there are URL links to other resources, a copy of my Feb 2017 Soaring magazine article: Models and Websites Overview

Of special note is an interesting video:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vqxvas9novfecgb/JohnMittel_Seminole_20180221_SnailTrail.mp4?dl=0

showing 5 minute updated GOES-16 satellite visible imagery 0.5km resolution for a region around Seminole in central Florida. John Mittel's igc flight track is "snail trailed". Using the IDV viewer, there's an overlay of the Seminole landout/TP's (purple '+' with number), airspace and a green box for Seminole itself.

Thanks to John Bird for writing the python script that translates the igc file to the netcdf track format for IDV.

Enjoy...

Walter Rogers "WX"

[[email protected]]

> Walter Rogers "WX"

Great stuff, thanks for sharing.

on the HRRR - very often cannot find the PBL height, why is that parameter just not available sometimes?

Can you explain what we should look at and try to learn from on the HRRR ensemble?

Also while we are at it, I can't find on the HRRR page a good description of each parameter [what it is, what to learn from each]. It appears to be a page by programmer & forecasters for professional forecasters. I'd love to see a description of what each parameter is, just like Dr Jack does for "Hcrit" for example.

Chris

[[email protected]]

Walt,

I attended your presentation at the SSA convention and it was very informative and practical. Excellent job. Thank you.

Greig Glover


On Monday, March 5, 2018 at 3:46:26 PM UTC-6, WaltWX wrote:
> My presentation at SSA 2018 Reno are posted on:
>
> ssa.org -> Member Resources -> Weather -> news (publicly available)
>
> ...or....
>
> http://www.ssa.org/SoaringWeather?show=blog&id=4525
>
> Besides the presentation, there are URL links to other resources, a copy of my Feb 2017 Soaring magazine article: Models and Websites Overview
>
> Of special note is an interesting video:
>
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/vqxvas9novfecgb/JohnMittel_Seminole_20180221_SnailTrail.mp4?dl=0
>
> showing 5 minute updated GOES-16 satellite visible imagery 0.5km resolution for a region around Seminole in central Florida. John Mittel's igc flight track is "snail trailed". Using the IDV viewer, there's an overlay of the Seminole landout/TP's (purple '+' with number), airspace and a green box for Seminole itself.
>
> Thanks to John Bird for writing the python script that translates the igc file to the netcdf track format for IDV.
>
> Enjoy...
>
> Walter Rogers "WX"

[Andy Blackburn[_3_]]

On Monday, March 5, 2018 at 1:46:26 PM UTC-8, WaltWX wrote:

> Of special note is an interesting video:
>
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/vqxvas9novfecgb/JohnMittel_Seminole_20180221_SnailTrail.mp4?dl=0
>
> showing 5 minute updated GOES-16 satellite visible imagery 0.5km resolution for a region around Seminole in central Florida. John Mittel's igc flight track is "snail trailed". Using the IDV viewer, there's an overlay of the Seminole landout/TP's (purple '+' with number), airspace and a green box for Seminole itself.
>
> Thanks to John Bird for writing the python script that translates the igc file to the netcdf track format for IDV.


Wow, are there available tools and instructions to make something like this out of any .igc file?

It would make a great online resource too - or maybe the Navier folks would put it on theirSeeYou future features list.

Andy Blackburn
9B

[aivian]

Here's a guide covering the basics. It predates the availability of GOES 16 data however and can't really be described as out of the box point-and-click easy. Walt may have a better, more friendly workflow than outlined here.

https://psu.app.box.com/s/rhfz5w6ug2u11twec3rjo8ucjr6i3lwp

IDV is extremely powerful but not exactly the most user-friendly. Using it to animate glider flights is something akin to delivering pizza with a skycrane helicopter. On the other hand you aren't just limited to satellite data. Overlays of NWP output (winds, BL depth, etc), new fields calculated from NWP output, and radar data are all possible.

The source data for the animations is publicly available and there are well-documented API's for accessing the data (or for that matter the entire open-source backend for IDV) so adding this functionality to SeeYou is possible in principle. I can't speak to how difficult that would be though.

On Tuesday, March 6, 2018 at 4:14:43 PM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
> On Monday, March 5, 2018 at 1:46:26 PM UTC-8, WaltWX wrote:
>
> > Of special note is an interesting video:
> >
> > https://www.dropbox.com/s/vqxvas9novfecgb/JohnMittel_Seminole_20180221_SnailTrail.mp4?dl=0
> >
> > showing 5 minute updated GOES-16 satellite visible imagery 0.5km resolution for a region around Seminole in central Florida. John Mittel's igc flight track is "snail trailed". Using the IDV viewer, there's an overlay of the Seminole landout/TP's (purple '+' with number), airspace and a green box for Seminole itself.
> >
> > Thanks to John Bird for writing the python script that translates the igc file to the netcdf track format for IDV.
>
>
> Wow, are there available tools and instructions to make something like this out of any .igc file?
>
> It would make a great online resource too - or maybe the Navier folks would put it on theirSeeYou future features list.
>
> Andy Blackburn
> 9B

[WaltWX[_2_]]

PBL height is the very last field on a long list often with some blank lines.

On the HRRRE (for Ensemble experimental), there are limited graphics. It mostly just a probability of some threshold or event occurring looking at nine solutions... or a nine panel graphic... showing all nine solutions like for radar or echo tops.

Reference description of parameters:

https://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/RAP_var_diagnosis.html

Walt Rogers WX

On Monday, March 5, 2018 at 7:00:48 PM UTC-8, wrote:
> > Walter Rogers "WX"
>
> Great stuff, thanks for sharing.
>
> on the HRRR - very often cannot find the PBL height, why is that parameter just not available sometimes?
>
> Can you explain what we should look at and try to learn from on the HRRR ensemble?
>
> Also while we are at it, I can't find on the HRRR page a good description of each parameter [what it is, what to learn from each]. It appears to be a page by programmer & forecasters for professional forecasters. I'd love to see a description of what each parameter is, just like Dr Jack does for "Hcrit" for example.
>
> Chris

[WaltWX[_2_]]

Andy 9B...

John Bird (Aivian) said it well...

His URL link describes all that's needed to convert igc files to netcdf track files. My python skills were not up enough to convert it myself in the day or two before preparing my presentation. He just converted it for me so I could prepare the demo.

IDV is not very user friendly, but there is excellent documentation on www.unidata.ucar.edu/IDV. Actually, creating a GOES-16 animation is not that hard with IDV once you practiced the fundamentals of using IDV. Check out the video tutorials on subsetting GOES imagery on their site. Adding airspace, turnpoint plots ... and the track file... requires a lot more fiddling and detailed HOWTO instructions. I probably should do that and posted it.

BTW, there is another technique for overlaying GOES-16 imagery, TP databases and airspace. Bernd Fischer of TopMeteo pointed it out to me. Just use Google Earch and edit the kml / xml for the multiple images that need to be animated.

I'm not sure which technique is easier to use.

Walt Rogers WX

[WaltWX[_2_]]

UPDATE - My final two slides on Cockpit Weather implied that U.S. contest rules did NOT allow weather in the cockpit. I stand corrected. Since 2017 and under current rules, weather data can be used in the cockpit for competitions.

Andy Blackburn summarized the U.S. rules committee position. "The RC view is that since this is ubiquitously available on mobile phones it is impossible to police except by honor system and it creates a number of issues to deny pilots information that could improve their safety during extreme weather events, such as thunderstorms."

Walt Rogers WX

[WaltWX[_2_]]

I've included two SSA Reno 2018 Presentations in the Weather section of ssa.org:

TomMeteo - Bernd Fischer
Skysight - Matthew Scutter

http://www.ssa.org/SoaringWeather?show=blog

Enjoy...

Walt Rogers WX

[WaltWX[_2_]]

I've included two SSA Reno 2018 Presentations in the Weather section of ssa.org:

TopMeteo - Bernd Fischer
Skysight - Matthew Scutter

http://www.ssa.org/SoaringWeather?show=blog

Enjoy...

Walt Rogers WX