How about a dedicated forum where members with limited knowledge like me post their planned trips and all the experts here offer their analysis of weather
In general, just post it here, but for date/trip-specific wx (and only wx) advice, try:
What about that Telegram group?
Emir wrote:
aquila wrote: How about a dedicated forum where members with limited knowledge like me post their planned trips and all the experts here offer their analysis of weather?Just use existing forum for trips and if the place has been already discussed in some thread, continue discussion there; if not, open new thread. In that way you’ll get other valuable information on destination, not only the weather (which is probably the most important one).
What about that Telegram group? @Peter.
aquila wrote:
How about a dedicated forum where members with limited knowledge like me post their planned trips and all the experts here offer their analysis of weather?
Just use existing forum for trips and if the place has been already discussed in some thread, continue discussion there; if not, open new thread. In that way you’ll get other valuable information on destination, not only the weather (which is probably the most important one).
aquila wrote:
How about a dedicated forum where members with limited knowledge like me post their planned trips and all the experts here offer their analysis of weather
LOL, be careful what you wish for, you might get it. In my experience, these kind of weather discussions often go in one direction: sum of all fears. Therefore, not a big motivator.
IMHO also anything a few days before is mostly guesswork. A dedicated briefing with an aviation meteorologist is the best way of doing this.
(And just to have said it: Due to who I work for I would not be able to contribute anything to actual briefings or anything which amounts to it. The same goes for any other weather service employees. Discussing theory is a different story. )
Many thanks to all the contributions to my original question. I am glad I sparked a very interesting discussion about weather forecast. I think it will take me days or weeks to digest all the information in this thread though!
I am also impressed by the level of expertise shown by the members of this group. How about a dedicated forum where members with limited knowledge like me post their planned trips and all the experts here offer their analysis of weather 
?
Although not sure what one can add enhancement to guess icing in stratus?
I would always assume icing in stratus in sub zero temperatures but stratus was wrongly forecasted – there were several thin layers of clouds, some with water causing light icing and others totally benign – far away from solid few k feet stratus layer.
They show icing for that systematically: “thick stratus cover with -14C<temp<0C = automatic ice”
Although not sure what one can add enhancement to guess icing in stratus? maybe distance to a warm front if any? or alternatively lowering cloud-base vs ground (or safe altitude)?
Ibra wrote:
Was that with GFS?
It was GFS.
Ibra wrote:
what was the OAT between 5kft & 11kft?
+2 decreasing to -11
@Karl_Acht does what meteorologists do and what Windy for instance lets you do: Check out different model outputs and see how they diverge or converge. This is really a very valid if work intensive method, but exactly like this you can get really good stuff.
Which model is the best, the cows are long home and nobody knows. Each model has it’s pros and cons, each has it’s weaknesses and strengths.
When I see the discussions about accuracy of derived products, nothing can explain this better. Sometimes they hit, sometimes they fail. Gramet is as good or bad as it’s algorythm and the underlaying model, if the model changes, the output changes with it. Gramet does something well: It gives the visualisation per flight time, so you see what the model thinks is there troughout the flight. Most other cross sections can’t do that, as they calculate always for one time stamp only. What they have in common is that they depend 100% on the model.
Soo, why do we need visualisations such as Gramets? Not many people work with cross sections or other visualisations in the pro sector, because they can see what to expect in a front or in other sections just from the different 2D plots. Some of those guys (myself explicitly excluded) are real gurus when it comes to read this stuff into often “obscure” datascreens, others will resort to totally different plots to achieve the same.
Or you might want to start reding into ensemble modelling, where you take a bunch of different models and groupt them into graphics out of which your grandma might knit a pullover out of but they often enough are quite informative. I call this “democratic” forecasting because you belive the majority of models vs the ones which give sunny when the rest gives a deluge.
The example of the current stiff breeze over Europe is neat, for once it was clear from almost all models that this Sunday would be a batten down the hatches day in our parts, the variants though were considerable. Yet the “no sh*t” effect was big enough that most people got their warnings right.
If this thread only will do one thing I’d be a happy meteorologist. Throw away the idea of “exact” forecasts for specific locations with a range of more than a couple of hours. Think of it as model and experienced very well educated guesses, from ECMWF over GFS over “Them Injuns are chopping wood like mad so it’s gonna be a hard winter” kind of stuff. All of it works after a fashion, the art is to find out what works best for what situation.
