Any other WXSIM users?

I’ve just registered WXSIM http://members.aol.com/eburger/wxsim.html and WXSIMATE to have a try at simulating the local weather conditions. Are there any other users of this software out there who might like to share hints, tips, thoughts on using it?

I downloaded the trial about a year ago and it scared the hell out of me.

Hi,

I registered WXSIM a few weeks ago and am still getting to grips with it. Been doing lots of tests with it, with varying results. One thing I can say is that I am learning a lot about meteorology (or more like I need to learn a lot more :D). Yes you can use WXSIMATE to import the WD data. This is useful for adding your local conditions in, but so far, in my tests this does not seem to make a large difference. In fact it’s interesting to see what differences occur with various changes…and there are lots of variables to play with.

Not a very informative posting I know, but I would say it’s worth perservering with WXSIM. I know I will!

All the best

Terry

I think you’re right…I need to learn a lot more meteorology before I can really understand what WXSIM is doing for me. However, despite my lack of knowledge it still surprised me yesterday. I ran it on Sunday evening and noticed that it said it would be start raining at 0730 yesterday morning. It was a bit late, but it did start raining at 08:00!

What I really want to do is plot WXSIM forecasts against measured conditions over a reasonable period. I’m convinced that will help me to understand more about what factors are important in my local micro-climate. That needs time, so for now I’m just playing and learning more about how WXSIM and WXSIMATE work together.

My biggest problem at the moment is getting good raw data to feed into it. I can pick up my own station data and READY model data reliably, but getting usable sets of METAR, SYNOP and RAOB data for this area seems hit and miss. My local airport (EGNH) only updated METAR between approx 0700 and 2000, so by the time I get a chance to play the data is usually a couple of hours old. However, the METAR data source, e.g FSU and COD, don’t always seem to include EGNH. Sometimes FSU will have it but COD won’t and vice versa.

On Monday I could get local METAR but no local RAOB. Today I can get local RAOB but no local METAR. Grrr. I’ll persevere though!

Thats really interesting… I see someone here in/near Auckland has had it customised… Brian maybe? I’d quite like to see how it works in this part of the world

I’m not sure how important the local METAR source is - unless it has been used in your customisation. My configuration is customised on Coventry as the wx is similar to mine here, although this is not the airport. I have a similar problem to you in that my nearest airfield EGTC is only six miles away, but its METAR output is erratic and only during daylight hours. But I think METARs for stations upwind of your site are important. I don’t seem to have a problem with the raw data, although sometimes some stations are missing. If its any help here are the urls I use for METAR information.

http://adds.aviationweather.gov/metars/ - I use a list of UK stations on this page
http://www.baseops.de/ - Select metar and I use Europe, Scandanavian and Sweden for when the wind is in that direction

The other sources, which you probably are aware of, are:
http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/upper/Current.rawins
http://weather.cod.edu/digatmos/sao/
http://weather.cod.edu/digatmos/syn/
http://www.atmos.albany.edu/weather/data1/upperair/

WXSIMATE can download data, but it needs to be registered I think. I am looking at using Digital Atmosphere to do this at the moment.

Hope this helps!

Any news on this program? Just wondering how you’re getting along with it now…

Where are you finding WSXIMATE.

I don’t see it on the weathergraphics.com website.

Thanks,

Gary Dumbleton

You’ll need to go direct to Tom’s web site for WXSIMATE… http://members.aol.com/eburger/wxsim.html

[quote author=NorCal Dan link=topic=6914.msg53280#msg53280 date=1108538705]
Any news on this program?

I grabbed wxsimate to play with and it doesn’t appear to get WD data correctly, at least when I compare the current conditions and Recent data. Here’s a screen shot…I probably don’t have it setup correctly…


The data wxsimate collects from WD…is from the last whole hour unless you specify otherwise. Even if you do specify the current time…it can’t capture the exact current time because it gets the data from the month2005.txt logfile.

The values shown in the screen capture…the Current conditions and recent data, they never change. Every time I run it and enter 2005 for the year and select Import I get the same exact figures. I am attempting to import data using the settings shown in the screen capture.

Perhaps I have something configured incorrectly?

Dan,
I’m away from home and don’t have access to wxsimate, but from memory, check in the “customize” menu. I think there is a place there where you can choose between using WD and VP. I think you may have that on VP, because as I recall …where it says “text” and “textbox”…it should fill the month, day, and hour with the numerical values there, if using WD.

Checked, set od WD. It doesn’t fill in any boxes for me…

Sorry I can’t be much help then…just one last and probably a dumb question…do you have .net framework installed on your computer? Also maybe try droping the " \ " after logfiles?

Yea, .net is installed. I get this error when loading up, I thought it was because I am not a registered owner of the program. Guess I won’t be using their software…


error.JPG

Bummer :?..That’s odd… there should still be a cty.ftd

I did a fresh install, just to be sure…I checked before I ran the program and there was no cty.ftd file in the install package. Very strange.

Yea…my apologies but I was wrong. I checked an old zip file version of wxsim I archived, and it does not have the cty.fdt file. The customized zip I received when I registered has it.