Regional   Atmospheric   Soaring   Prediction
BLIPMAP FORECASTS
For Great Britain
Using a locally-run WRF model with 4, 5 & 12 km horizontal resolution and 52 vertical levels
BLIPMAP™ = Boundary Layer Information Prediction MAP
Created by Dr. John W. (Jack) Glendening, Meteorologist 

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Site maintained by Paul Scorer
Comments to p.scorer_at_leedsmet.ac.uk

Page Last updated Sun Jan 24 16:00 GMT 2010

Do not forget that all times in RASP are UTC!

RASPtable is the simplest interface to all Parameter Maps. See the Introduction for usage.

PLEASE CHECK THE DATE AT THE TOP OF EACH MAP, AS THE SYSTEM IS SUBJECT TO GLITCHES.

The Status Check indicates if any run error was detected.

Please note that the Location of the LAND-SEA BOUNDARY is approximate.

For more Information about the data in the maps, see DrJack's Website and especially the Parameter Descriptions

BlipSpot Maker provides text parameter values for all forecast times at a location.
You can also get a Sounding. You can copy the URL and add to your Favourites list.

Track Average indicates if a task specified by BGA Trigraphs is achievable

Track Start Time indicates the best time to start a task.
WARNING: it is very slow!

Wind Tool indicates whether Ridge Sites are expected to work

Experts may prefer a file-list interface to the Forecast Maps from the Day links below.
Today (12Km)    Monday    Tuesday   Wednesday   Thursday   Friday   Saturday   Sunday

The schedule explains what happens each day,
and indicates when forecasts are updated.

Thanks to:

NEWS:

24 January 2010: RASPtable Zoom now zooms only the active map, so Title and Scale are always visible.

7 July 2009: RASPtable Reduced List is "more focussed" - so fewer Parameters.
Please let me know if there is something you really need without having to go to the full list.

20 April 2009: New simpler RASPtable - "RASPtableLite".
The hope is that this reduced set of parameters will be all you need.
Functionality is otherwise as in RASPtable.
The Descriptions have been tidied up a bit, too.

10 April 2009: Maps in TrackAverage now work with IE.

7 April 2009: TrackAverage Turn Points updated to BGA 2009 list.

30 Mar 2009: Improvements to the Status Check:
it now reports the current situation,
indicates the status of a run in progress
and indicates any time(s) for which plotting went wrong.

20 Mar 2009: Introduction updated: Guidance added on how to grab forecast maps.

18 Mar 2009: Parameter Descriptions added to RASPtable

11 Feb 2009: Additional parameters added: press1000 and press950
Please report whether or not these are useful.

23 Jan 2009: All forecasts are at half-hour intervals from today
RASPtable, the "Experts'" file-list and TrackAverage have been updated.
Please be aware that these times do not exist in the archive prior to today.

3 Jan 2009: Mean Sea Level Pressure added, under Wind Parameters
Rain plots now 1 Hr Accumulated
Don't forget Reload / Refresh

25 Oct 2008: New run: 12 Km for Today using 0Z data
4Km uses 18Z data from yesterday
Comparison of 4Km & 12Km can indicate forecast confidence

20 Oct 2008: Track Average now also presents Wstar, BLwind and HCrit maps for the Task Area (don't forget Reload / Refresh)
Wind Tool: "Yesterday" now included

30 Sept 2008: Wind Tool: Nympsfield now has N & S runs

7 Sept 2008: Wind Tool now available
Are the UK Ridge sites working? [Slow if you "Check All"!]

3 Aug 2008: Track Average now available
Uses "Speed to Fly" for task specified by BGA TriGraphs

Tooltip / PopUp now supports dual parameter plots (e.g. wind)
See RASPtable Introduction for use

Archived forecasts (from 13 June 2008) in RASPtable

All Forecasts are for the whole of the UK
4 Km for Today; 5 Km for Tomorrow; 12 Km for the Rest of the Week

John Williams' Award Winning Flight benefits from RASP


FURTHER INFORMATION  (Links are to DrJack's Website; The Words are his too!)

Overview
      These forecasts are intended to help the meteorology-minded pilot better evaluate soaring conditions.  The maps are particulalry useful to cross-country soaring pilots, since they allow evaluation of conditions away from the home field.  Utilizing the forecasts can require some self-education (though that can't be too hard since over 2000 US pilots actively use BLIPMAPs in the US) as individualized assistance is not provided.  At first glance the website can seem intimidating since so many parameters are forecast - but most are "supplemental" forecasts to be used as needed and many users normally look only at the three or four they have found to be most useful, such as the expected lift strength or the maximum (dry) thermalling height or cloud potential/height forecasts, looking at additional parameters only under special conditions. 

How are these RASP forecasts produced ?  
      My traditional RUC and ETA BLIPMAP forecasts are obtained by post-processing forecast files output from NCEP prognostic models, so horizontal and vertical resolution is determined by that used in those models.  Here I am instead running a prognostic model myself, so am able to specify the vertical/horizontal grid (though of course subject to limits of practicality).  A WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) model is being initialized and marched forward in time at 180 second time intervals to produce forecasts at 3 hr increments.  Initial and boundary conditions come from the larger-scale models run by NCEP, in this case from the GFS model having a resolution of around 100km.  To increase accuracy, forecasts are produced for three different grids:  a large-domain coarse-mesh grid (36 km), a 12 km grid nested inside it, and a small-scale fine-mesh 4km grid within that (but only results for the latter two grids are presented).  Since the data needed to make such runs is available globally, the forecasts can be made for anywhere in the world. 

Notes and Caveats: 
()  One is not supposed to believe all the details of these forecasts, particularly since the smallest-scale structure is constantly changing yet one a few snapshots at different times are shown.  Rather, one should be looking for patterns. 
()  Forecasts for points close to the boundary will be less accurate than for those located nearer the center of the domain, due to inevitable mis-matchings between the coarse and fine grids.  In particular, predictions of max/min BL vertical velocity are very noisy and inaccurate near the boundary (particularly where boundary condition problems exist).  To remind users of this, a dotted line marks the "frame" outside of which coarse-fine boundary interaction problems are most prevalent. 
()  The "Explicit CloudWater Cloudbase" estimates are based on cloud water predicted from internal model equations and problematical since there is no simple criterion for differentiating "mist" concentrations from "cloud" concentrations.  The criterion presently used is a first guess. 
()  The "Cu Potential" and "Sfc. LCL" predictions are based on a simple formula which considers only water vapor at the surface
()  This model does not ingest as much observational data as do the institutional models such as RUC and ETA, hence some effects are not included. 
()  The fact that these forecasts are only a snapshot in time of a fairly noisy field should be particularly emphasized for the 4 km resolution forecasts, as forecasts for, say, 30 minutes before or after would look different.  At this point it's difficult to figure how much value they really add anything, but one never knows til one tries. 
()  The "Vert. Velocity at 850mb (or 700mb or 500mb)" and "Vert. Velocity Slice at Vert.Vel.Max" parameters attempt to forecast mt. wave events, although strong vertical velocities resulting from deep BL convergence can also be found in the plots.  The first parameter gives a plan view of vertical velocity at the 850mb level, a height of roughly 1500 m MSL and thus often above the BL top.  The second parameter is a vertical slice taken at a point of maximum vertical velocity (as found at a height of approximately 1500 m AGL within a horizontal box which excludes ane outer edge of the domain; the position of that slice is indicated by a dotted line on the plot of the first parameter (with left-right on the slice always being left-right on the plan view).  A label above the plots gives the location and magnitude of the found maximum value.  Mt. wave predictions are best made using resultions no larger than 4km, since a coarser grid generally does not resolve the waves accurately. 
()  Time loops are provided to illustrate the variability, and hence uncertainty, over a 3 hour period.  Unfortunately the color scales are not identical for all maps in the loop, but generally they are roughly comparable.