Dr Jacks BLIPMAPS

I came across Dr Jack's BLIPMAP forecast page http://www.drjack.net/BLIPMAP/NE/index.html

Probably a lot of good information if you know how to use it (and some very pretty maps), but also not exactly intuitive and slightly overwhelming.

Anybody find good use of this material, and in an orderly process how do you proceed to a practical forecast of what may happen thermal wise today at your gliderport?

Most of the discussion so far can be found here:

Martin, In trying to understand the basics of of what underlies Dr. Jack's forecast, I also look at the following site (Link is on the good Doctor's page at the bottom: http://www-frd.fsl.noaa.gov/mab/soundings/java/ The advantage I see in this NOAA site is in the direct depiction of 'virtual soundings' for every hour of the forecast day. The site predicts the air mass structure with temps, dew points and winds for an airport of your choice, in my case Aurora (ARR), Illinois. The little Java applet that loads with the page allows you to 'hover' your pointer on the graph at your local altitude and predicted temperature. Upon clicking, the program draws the dry and wet adiabates, showing cloud bases and temperature spread. I usually look at the hours from 12PM to 6PM and get at very good idea of how the day is shaping up and when it's dying. Being so close to Lake Michigan I appreciate of course the mapping of all the other parameters on Dr. Jack's site in determining what area to fly in. Herb Kilian, J7

Also, clicking and dragging out a rectangle allows you to 'zoom in' on that area of interest. So, for example, if you don't expect to get to 60,000 feet that day, you can get a rectangle that only goes to, say, 18,000.

Tim Ward

Tim, please explain how to do this clicking and dragging of rectangles and what software might be needed. I just went to a blipmap and couldn't find anything that would drag.

I'm sorry, I thought from the context it was clear I was talking about the Java applet at: http://www-frd.fsl.noaa.gov/mab/soundings/java/ that Herbert Kilian was referring to, not BLIPMAPS.

I guess the context wasn't that clear after all.

Tim Ward

Jim,

First, look at the 'For New Users' section of http://www.drjack.net/BLIPMAP/help.html

Second, how you use them depends to some degree on your weather knowledge, your area, and your previous experience. Personally, for where I live, I first look at the 'Height of BL Top' prediction to see if further investigation is worthwhile, and if it is then check out the 'W*' plot, the 'Cumulus Potential' plot, and