Skippy Sky

[adman]

I have been getting a little frustrated by skippy sky (http://www.skippysky.com.au/Australia/) recently. It seems that with the weather so volatile here in SEQld you can't trust skippy at the moment.

On Monday - it was telling me that tuesday and wednesday nights should be clear.... and there was just about 100% cloud cover last night (tue), and tonight is not looking good either....:mad2: Right now it says that should be clear - and looking outside I would say it's about 80-90% cloud.

I think that they should err on the side of caution. It would be much better to predict cluod, and to get a nice surprise when it is clear, than to predict clear and get cloud.

I was looking forward to getting my gear out last night :(.

Adam

[bojan]

Well, exactly that happened in Melbourne on Monday (clouds predicted, but it was clear for couple of hours in the evening, enough for my purpose).

It is very hard to come up with accurate weather forecast sometimes..

When I was working for NEC, I was always joking about bad forecasts from Bureau of Meteorology: because, what else could you expect if NEC super computer was used for the job :P

[JD2439975]

I understand your frustration with the weather, if only the clouds would clear we could get a couple of days in before the CFA fills the sky with smoke. :lol:

[Ric]

That's interesting Adam, I just looked outside and it's lovely and clear but they say it should be 60-80% cloud cover for my area.

To setup or not to setup? that is the question.

[adman]

Looks like we got yours and you got ours...:P

[RobF]

I always try and cross check Skippy, 7Timer, Bom Radar (for signs of distant rain that suggests clouds) and the BOM 3hr IR loop. Although 7Timer and Skippy both use NOAA (I believe), its surprising how often they differ a bit. Might be times they update perhaps.

Brissy is tough at the moment - its easier in winter when you watching cloud blow across the continent - just a matter of timing when it hits. The moist onshore SE winds at the moment play havoc with any bit of instability over us. It is damned frustrating though when you wait for a predicted clear patch later in the week and then it disappears at the last moment!

BTW - last night was ok later in the night, and tonight looking very similar...

[Outbackmanyep]

I concur with RobF, i also cross-check the different programs, when in doubt nothing beats sticking your head out the window and looking up! LOL
Don't EVER put your faith 100% on these sites!

As i say, it works 60% of the time 100% of the time!

[RobF]

Found these 2 poking around yesterday. Nice resolution and displays to explore for many locations, even though source satellites same as BOM in most cases. Will have to do until I get my own personal geostationary satellite over Bris... :D

http://www.australiasevereweather.com/links/ozsatpic.htm
http://realtime2.bsch.au.com/vis_sat2.html?region=brisbane&loop=yes&images=5&allday=&start=&stop=

[andrew_d_cool]

Hi Folks,

I run the SkippySky site.

It's clear that a few folks haven't taken the time to read the online Help
file, or for that matter to click on the "contact SkippySky" link that appears above every map.

So here's a brief rundown. The colour scheme uses ten colours to cover
the predicted range of cloud cover from 0% to 100%. It follows then that the dark blue covers from 0%..9.9%, the next lighter blue from 10%..19.9% and so on.

That darker blue ***does not*** necessarily mean NO cloud cover!
It means somewhere between buggar all cloud and ~10% coverage.

Now I don't fiddle with or massage the predictions as churned out by
the American GFS weather model, beyond the fact that the contouring
will smooth out the coarse 0.5 degree resolution data a little.

While we're on it, take note of that data resolution of 0.5 degrees. That's about 1 data point per 40km. The Yanks call it "high resolution", but no one should expect to get a deadly accurate forecast for the cloud cover over the Hills hoist in their backyard.

My constant plea is for people to think in terms of trends in the data, rather than to seek out elusive pinpoint accuracy.

And yes, 7Timer, Unisys, Meteoblue, astroforecast.org and others all use the same source GFS data. I started SkippySky because I really don't like the format of 7Timer and the original CSC (which of course uses different Canadian source data and doesn't cover outside CONUSA)

Remember that when you provide your lat/lon to these other sites, they
are converting that back into a grid of data where each data point covers about 40kmx40km. At least a weather map style presentation provides a feel for what's coming your way.

The Seeing field is the only parameter that is manufactured locally in SkippySky. We use the GFS windspeed vectors at ground level and up at the Tropopause to derive a weighted index for Seeing, which is NOT related to any scale of arc resolution, certainly not the Bortle scale as I've seen on one website commenting on SkippySky.

Again, I urge you to think of trends in the data. The darker the blue
on the Seeing maps, the more likely you are to have better seeing.
I can't put my hand on my heart and promise 2 arcsec seeing if the Seeing is rated as a 10. But it might just be worth your time to drag the scope out.

I can't speak for what the other guys do with the GFS data that they download and present on the net. I don't have their source code...

If all is running well with the servers locally, and with the GFS servers in the USA, then SkippySky is updated every 6 hours. Every map has the datestamp and timestamp of the GFS data at the top left hand corner of the map.

Which reminds me, I'll have to alter daylight saving time...

As for the accuracy of the GFS data? The NOAA/NCEP/GFS is the world's leading Numerical Weather Prediction model. No matter what you think of any inaccuracies, you won't get better forecast data.

If you have queries, please PM me at contact@skippysky.com.au

Cheers,

Andrew Cool

Adelaide

[RobF]

Hi Andrew

Skippy is a fantastic resource for which many (including myself) are most thankful. Available documentation is excellent and clear, and it does provide a wonderful geographical overview of "what's coming". Many thanks for all the work you must have put into it.

Please don't take our grumblings at the weather or the generally excellent models that predict it as criticism.
Amateur astronomers have never had it so good :)


(now if only it wasn't cloudy I'd be outside right now.....:sadeyes:)

[adman]

Hi Andrew - only now just caught up with thread again, and saw your post. Yes, as rob says please do not take my grumbling too seriously - it's not like any of us can do anything about the weather! Well actually i used to be able to when I lived in london - i had an umbrella that, whenever i took it with me, you could almost guarantee that it wouldn't rain....

Seriously though - you have done a great job with the site, and i agree with you about the format of some of the other sites. I almost exclusively use skippysky for that very reason.

Regards
Adam

[multiweb]

+1 I love skippy weather. Use it all the time.:thumbsup:

[aworley]

Me too - SkippySky is great........