I have contacted Chris Mc Mahon and he suggests having WXSIMATE on my fathers’ computer to download the files required and I have also tried setting up WXSIM and WXSIMATE on my father’s Computer. Unfortunately, when I try putting in the Customisation and Upgrade Codes nothing happens, the whole thing reverts to Atlanta (USA). WXSIMATE does download files but when I transfer these to WXSIM on my Computer, it does not fill in the regional data for weather stations just upwind of the UK, nor does it fill in data for upper air. It does put stuff in the Interrupt Planner, but it is not remotely like what is predicted for the UK.
This suggests to me that WXSIM and WXSIMATE are downloading data appropriate to Atlanta in the USA, not for the North Pennines. The forecast was suggesting several days with light easterly winds and basically settled weather whereas most predictions I have seen over the last 48 hours are for deep depression (ex-hurricane Orphir) to push into the western approaches to bring strong winds and rain for northern England, albeit with mild temperatures with winds being south/south-westerly.
As to how to get around this problem, I could try and get Internet re-attached to my Computer. This is going to be a bit of a faff as I have Windows 7 and I will be bombarded with up-grade adverts and there is the threat of more potent viruses that Windows 7 might not cope with (one reason I wish my computer to remain disconnected from the Internet)! I could get round this by investing in some strong anti-virus software before connecting to the Internet, connecting to the Internet could be a job in itself since I am not so tech-savvy!
It seems to me that I cannot just copy the Custom and Upgrade Codes into WXSIM and WXSIMATE on my father’s Computer because the software is write-protected (Copyright restrictions??), so in order to do this I assume this means that I might need to contact Mr Thomas Ehrensperger to buy the codes to get my home Customisations installed on WXSIM and WXSIMATE on my father’s Computer. There is, of course, the added matter as to whether my father wants to have all my weather-forecasting software on his Computer!
Is there a means of putting in the pre-requisite data manually having looked at surface and upper-air weather charts. I know that there’s this wdata.txt and a readydat.txt file but I would need to ascertain the codes of surrounding weather stations, though some of the codes- used for cloud cover, wind direction, wind-speed, weather-types I could probably find out so it is all put in the correct formats.
I have WXSIM connected to my Automatic Weather Station so no problems there. I have managed to get that connected just fine.
I would just like to be able to get WXSIM up-and-running on my computer, and be able to use it to do proper forecasts using real data. I can (of course) use websites like www.weathercharts.org which has model ensemble predictions for surface temperature, pressure and wind changes for the surface and at the 500 mb level. I can then use this to fill in expected changes to wind speeds, direction and atmospheric pressure on the Interrupt Planner and put in data on upper winds and the temperature/humidity profile at the start of a Forecast Run. The little Regional Advection feature also allows you to type in data manually for various Sites up-wind and (of course) getting current conditions (or those at subsequent Advection Propmts) for such locations is not too difficult. I can type predicted weather for say, Belfast (a common up-wind location) into AccuWeather and that will give me a good idea of what to put in the Advection Prompts that come up in a forecast Run in WXSIM.
Despite these few issues, I have to say that WXSIM is a great little piece of Software for predicting various interesting What-If Scenarios like (for instance) ten days of persistent 20 mph easterly winds originating over northern Russia in Winter, you can find out how cold it is likely to get using the Default Advection settings with the weak anticyclonic curvature option (representing strong high-pressure over northern Scandinavia). Another example I have experimented with is having ten days with clear skies and high-pressure in summer, which with realistic starting conditions and light westerly winds (caused by an Azores High extending north) produces some hot days but nothing over 30C: This agrees with the (rare) experiences of such summer anticyclones for where I live in the North Pennines. It does produce realistic values of temperature, winds and rainfall, suggesting rainfall and possible thunderstorms when the atmosphere is convectively unstable (though you have to put your own precipitation amounts in the Interrupt Planner and if it suggests showers and thunderstorms on the first run you can put the amounts- going by the descriptions- into the Interrupt Planner on a second Forecast Run). The programme even suggests when fog and stratus are likely to occur- rather common in the North Pennines at this time of the year!
That said, it would be good to be able to use the software fully for the tasks for which it was originally designed!
Ian Pennell