Today is the last day of the Topmeteo free demo trial.

I've been using it from graphics on the web page rather than through SeeYou focusing on my flight area which is the Southern Sierras, Mojave Desert and Central California. My comments up to this point:

* Thermal Height Cloud Base seem pretty comparable to the gfs and nam. There are occasional discrepancies like for tomorrow... Sun 05/01 over the San Joaquin Valley. XCSkies and DrJack cloud bases 10.5k msl... versus TopMeteo 7.5k msl

* Geo referencing is poor. It's using river/aqueducts instead of GoogleMaps or OpenMaps. Would much prefer use of highway, major roads, airspace Class B,C and restricted. It's a definite plus for XCSkies and DrJack with their ability to fade background maps in/out with a javascript slider

* Six day forecasts are a definite plus although XCSkies reaches out to day five with the gfs.

* I like the ability to configure site forecast tables by lat/lon. This give one considerable information on thermal height, strength, cloud bases, top, winds, etc

* The cost of Topmeteo is a bit high at $99 ($109 if you want days 5 and 6) compared to free for DrJack and $40 for XCSkies. Although, SeeYou integration is a big win for TopMeteo.

Overall, it's a toss up in my opinion regarding the value of Topmeteo. If you use the subscription SeeYou, Topmeteo integration is a wise investment for planning flights out to six days. Given the lower cost DrJack and XCSkies, Topmeteo should lower it's cost for U.S. pilots.

One definite plus for Topmeteo is the long term support that extra dollars provide. Jack Glendening is no longer developing DrJack.net... and when he is no longer able to make small updates, that site will likely disappear. Support from XCSkies leaves something to be desired. The service hasn't been updated significantly since around 2010.

Walt Rogers