Hi Everybody,
I’m excited to see all this discussion of WXSIM! I’ll try to briefly answer a few questions that have been raised, and offer a few comments.
First, WXSIMATE already does much of what Robert was suggesting. With a single click it will go and download all the internet data WXSIM needs (EXCEPT the READY data - more on that in a minute), cull through it to pick out the parts that are relevant to your station, and then append (previously saved) READY model data to it. It saves this data under a file name you can define in advance - for later use in WXSIM.
Regarding the READY data, it would be nice if it could be downloaded automatically, but it’s informative to read the note on the site. They specifically want data to be accessed manually (using the password, for a couple of reasons. First, too many automated programs grabbing data from it would crash their site. Second, they’ve got a great site and they want you to actually look at it. I must add that they are performing a wonderful service, using a few US taxpayer dollars, to the whole world. In fact, for most of the world, this GFS model data is the only free data of its type. In contrast, output from the EMCWF (the big European model) is highly restricted and you have to pay to get it. I’m really grateful to the NOAA ARL that such data is available at all!
As for WD data imported by WXSIMATE - it gets various types of data, going back as far as 30 days, and does a variety of averging processes to “feed” WXSIM useful data. I actually think that the internet data retrieval is more vital to running WXSIM than is the WD data - though both help.
Responding to Chris’s desire for automatically exported files - they already exist, including the .csv file (which I implemented a few versions ago). Just be sure to get the latest version of WXSIM (it’s 10.6 right now). Every forecast is saved, though by default with the name 'latest (.txt, .csv, and .wxf for use in the Retrieval module).
Thoughts on automation…
I must say, that would be fun! I’d like to walk up to the computer and see a forecast already made, and then see current data superimposed on it to see how it’s doing so far! Three issues are relevant here:
One is technical - that is how I would actually implement that. A brief effort at that several months ago didn’t get very far before I ran into difficulties - though I don’t think they’re insurmountable.
Another is that the forecasts would simply not be as good. Most feedback I get on forecast accuracy is very positive, but there are exceptions. Usually these result from the user not understanding (which is understandable!) what all to do, though occasionally it’s just a tough place to forecast for, or I had insufficient data to do a good customization.
The third item is that, actually, there’s quite a bit of value in being “forced” to work through the process of running WXSIM. I’ve had comments from users to the effect that they had learned more in a few weeks of using WXSIM than in all their years of their weather hobby. I think carefully running it (and just playing around with it, making fake forecasts under various ‘pretend’ conditions) helps develop forecasting intuition very rapidly. Also, it’s good to learn about all those data types, though they can be confusing at first.
That said, it would still be great to have at least the option of a quick, automated run! I see the interest is there, and I will definitely revisit the possibility!
Thanks!
Tom