Interesting that blipmap and Dr.Jack is not mentioned.
While I think it is very educating to learn all the forecasting tools, and they can be very helpful for long term forecasting, I found that all I ever need to be able to predict the weather with over 90% accuracy up to 3 days in advance is blipmap and RASP (combined with NWS forecast discussion). I never used any other tool since blipmap was introduced 15 years ago. Seem to work well for me.

Ramy