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[Phys-L] in the news: weather forecasting



Hi Folks --

This is arguably on-topic for this forum, insofar as students who
study physics sometimes go on to careers in meteorology. Besides,
it's interesting.

It turns out that NOAA has been upping its game at an impressive rate.
The rate has been sustained for a few years; I frequently find new
or improved products. Here's are a few of my favorites:

======== *Spaghetti Plots* ===========

These show various possible hurricane tracks:
https://ruc.noaa.gov/tracks/

It's an interactive map, so you can zoom in on the region of interest.
You can also select which model you want to see, or look at (almost)
all models at once. It's an experimental product, with no guarantee,
but I trust the folks on this list understand the concept that noisy
data is better than no data.

Spaghetti plots have been around for eons, but they used to be a lot
harder for non-experts (like me) to obtain. Also they used to be
updated a lot less frequently. And they didn't extend as far into
the future.

============ *Point Forecast* ==============

Weather forecasts are /not/ limited to places where they have
observing stations. This comes in handy, because even though
you probably live in a town, you might be planning a trip into
the nearby mountains, and the weather might be quite different
there. For example:
https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=38.9582&lon=-120.5265

The general procedure is to go to the main page
https://www.weather.gov/
and fill in the box near the upper-left corner with the name
of some identifiable place "near" the place of interest. Then
scroll the map, and then click on the exact place of interest.

=========== *Hourly Forecast* ==============

This is available in town or at arbitrary points as described
above. It is vastly more detailed than what you might be
accustomed to seeing. For example:
https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=38.9582&lon=-120.5265&FcstType=graphical

The general procedure is to get the point forecast as described
above, then click on the words "Hourly Weather Forecast".