Scott,

Dan Gudgel and I have discussed the focus of our presentations. He will emphasize basically meteorology and how to understand the concepts for soaring forecasting. I will focus on a more technical discussion on how to use specific software tools... like NOAA ESRLs Interactive Skew-T, BUFKIT, RAOB.com and IDV. I will also have a segment on "Weather in the Cockpit" ... what's in store for the future that might be useful for glider pilots.
My slides presentation will independently be posted (working hard on them now...) including several video demos on how to use each of these applications. I might try to capture the live presentation via an Iphone from the podium. The quality may not be great... but at least you'll hear what I had to say.

This is what will be published in the SSA Convention program:

__________________________________________________ ____________________________

SSA Convention 2016 Presentation

TOPIC: "Practical Use of the Newest Meteorological Models and Visualization Tools"


Thermal forecasts from boundary layer information in the latest high resolution models such as the HRRR can easily be visualized with the right software tools. Better yet, the data is freely available in the United States. This presentation will review the use of four applications for plotting thermal height and other sounding information: 1) Skew-T viewer from NOAA 2) RAOB - a commercial application 3) BUFKIT - freely available model sounding viewer 4) IDV - a flexible open source tool for 2D and 3D visualizing of the atmosphere with examples from the HRRR model geo-referenced for soaring. Additional comments will be made on future enhancements to NOAA models, satellite (GOES-R) imagery and what this might mean for contest operations including "weather in the cockpit".

Walter Rogers is a retired NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) forecaster, glider contest pilot, and soaring weather forecast "guru." He served with NWS for over 42 years retiring in 2010. Walt has provided forecasting support for numerous regional, national and world gliding/aviation events including: Voyager "Around The World" meteorologist team 1986, World Gliding Championships 1983, 1991, 2012, Perlan Steve Fossett altitude record 2004-2005.

He is an active Discus 2A contest pilot "WX" with over 4000 hours total time. Competition wins include nine U.S. Regional championships and the 2008 Western Baron Hilton Cup. Mr. Rogers currently resides in Palmdale, California.