My weather forecast checks

2025-02-28 17:47

These are my bookmarked local weather forecast sites I use prior to any big mission in the mountains. I don't rely on any single one, but assess all of them to get a general feel for conditions. I marry them up to my planned route, and make the call if I'll go ahead.

• Metvuw charts - My first point of call. A quick visual chart in 6 hour windows, showing wind direction, speed and precipitation.

• MetService local forecasts - One of the more common weather forecast pages. I look at everything here, but the scrollable wind direction and speed, rainfall, and temperature is nice.

• MetService Southern-Lakes forecasts - A bit broader than the local forecast, but I usually skip down to the "Wind at 2000m" section to check for those higher altitude winds and gusts.

• Windy - A good interactive map. I use the tools to convert wind speed to km/h, change altitudes, and check rain radars as well.

• RASP BLIPMAPs, or Regional Atmospheric Soaring Prediction Boundary Layer Information Prediction maps, here's Queenstown - I learnt about these when I did my paragliding training. There is a tonne of information in them - Wind, temperature, precipitation, cloud, and other atmospheric details which I don't particularly need when on foot (but were useful for paragliding).

A quick note on low and high pressure systems. Here in the southern hemisphere the winds around lows go clockwise, winds around highs go anti-clockwise. I remember this by "L" looking like a minute and second hand on a clock.