Cross country weather planning

I like it. Easy to compare different time periods, and allows one to focus in on the areas that might be a special problem, especially at the last minute.
 
Super cool. Going right into my bookmarks. One suggestion, would be nice to have the temps in C instead of F. When I think aviation, I always think C instead of F and that's what the ATIS gives you as well.
 
Chrisgoesflying said:
Super cool. Going right into my bookmarks. One suggestion, would be nice to have the temps in C instead of F. When I think aviation, I always think C instead of F and that's what the ATIS gives you as well.
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I'll work on that. Right now it's all raw data but should be pretty simple to add a setting for preference
 
I like it, too. Though I'd love to see it in graphical format, kind of like Launch Code does it but across the airports entered instead of across time (i.e. keeping the slider for time).

A way to put the airports in the URL (like the Launch Code link above) so you can bookmark the link to a frequent route would be cool, too.
 
Dana said:
I like it, too. Though I'd love to see it in graphical format, kind of like Launch Code does it but across the airports entered instead of across time (i.e. keeping the slider for time).

A way to put the airports in the URL (like the Launch Code link above) so you can bookmark the link to a frequent route would be cool, too.
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URL parameters are coming
 
I like that it is super fast, so it may be useful for certain situations.

However (and not to be a douche, just constructive criticism), just knowing only what the weather is at the start and end of a trip is not very useful for flight planning. Whether its flying across California's central valley, or west coast to east and back that I did 2 years ago, you have to know what's happening in between airports.

Where I live, my home airport and destination can be severe clear, but in between can have all kinds of weather related issues. For me, I can't think of a reason why I would use this because I would still have to go to another website to get the rest of the critical info.
 
Lndwarrior said:
I like that it is super fast, so it may be useful for certain situations.

However (and not to be a douche, just constructive criticism), just knowing only what the metars are is not very useful for flight planning. Whether its flying across California's central valley, or west coast to east and back that I did 2 years ago, you have to know what's happening in between airports.

Where I live, my home airport and destination can be severe clear, but in between can have all kinds of weather related issues. For me, I can't think of a reason why I would use this because I would still have to go to another website to get the rest of the critical info.
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These are not METARS, this is the NOAA nation blend. There's a link on the info page to all the stations included. At some point I'll add functionality to find non-airport stations but that's down the road a bit
 
Lndwarrior said:
I like that it is super fast, so it may be useful for certain situations.

However (and not to be a douche, just constructive criticism), just knowing only what the weather is at the start and end of a trip is not very useful for flight planning. Whether its flying across California's central valley, or west coast to east and back that I did 2 years ago, you have to know what's happening in between airports.

Where I live, my home airport and destination can be severe clear, but in between can have all kinds of weather related issues. For me, I can't think of a reason why I would use this because I would still have to go to another website to get the rest of the critical info.
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string a list of airports along the way...not just your departure and destination....one in the middle, two airports, four... I played with it listing 4 or 5 along an imaginary route and it worked like a charm!

ksmx klax kmry ksts kacv
results in a fraction of a second
 
Greg Lutz said:
These are not METARS, this is the NOAA nation blend. There's a link on the info page to all the stations included. At some point I'll add functionality to find non-airport stations but that's down the road a bit
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I'm curious...why did you choose this NOAA data instead of METARs?
 
Brad W said:
string a list of airports along the way...not just your departure and destination....one in the middle, two airports, four... I played with it listing 4 or 5 along an imaginary route and it worked like a charm!

ksmx klax kmry ksts kacv
results in a fraction of a second
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If no airports along the way, look here https://vlab.noaa.gov/web/mdl/nbm-stations-v4.0
you might come up with something like this: KPYM KBDL 46014 OKPC1 MBMW1
note that's just an example because not non-airport stations are in CA
 
Brad W said:
I'm curious...why did you choose this NOAA data instead of METARs?
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METARS are a picture in the moment. TAFs only give you about 24 hours where the NOAA data goes out 3 days
this is intended to be a planning tool not a preflight tool
intended to answer the question: Can I get there and back this weekend?
 
@Greg Lutz - How difficult would it be to have a user selection for alternative data sources?
User can pick
METAR
TAF
NOAA data

Or would that be far beyond the scope you have intended?
 
Mongoose Aviator said:
@Greg Lutz - How difficult would it be to have a user selection for alternative data sources?
User can pick
METAR
TAF
NOAA data

Or would that be far beyond the scope you have intended?
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That would not be terrible but I have other things queued up to do first. Also, TAFs and METARS are available all over the place. I wrote this page because I could not find a site that gave me a picture across distance over time

Also, if you compare TAFs to this app you will find them amazingly similar. I'd bet a bacon breakfast TAFs are derived from the NOAA Blend of Models
 
Greg Lutz said:
METARS are a picture in the moment. TAFs only give you about 24 hours where the NOAA data goes out 3 days
this is intended to be a planning tool not a preflight tool
intended to answer the question: Can I get there and back this weekend?
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ahh yes...slapping my forehead now.... forgot the future element!
seems like a great idea and I like the simple implementation!
 
This is exactly what I've always wanted! The existing weather products suck for planning when you have to click between multiple locations for multiple times to try and get a picture of when the trip can happen. This will make it much better. Thank you!
 
Nice to see another NBM fan... Reminds me a little of the TAF board:
https://www.aviationweather.gov/taf/board

Maybe try condensing it into a view like that where you can see everything instead of the slider...
 
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Greg Lutz said:
I saw some usefulness in a website that shows 3 day weather forecast for cross country flights so I created one. Real quick way to determine if you can get there. It got a nice write up in General Aviation News. https://www.avxcwx.com. Have a look.
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love it. thanks for sharing.
 
I assume you mean you couldn't find a free site that does this? All the paid ones do it easily. Weatherspork is my current go to.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
I assume you mean you couldn't find a free site that does this? All the paid ones do it easily. Weatherspork is my current go to.
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Weatherspork looks nice but it does not appear to do what AVXCWX does which is weather over distance browsable by time. And, yes free is important to me. I already give Garmin plenty of my money for this publicly available data
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
I assume you mean you couldn't find a free site that does this? All the paid ones do it easily. Weatherspork is my current go to.
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Windy does it graphically, but you have to select points to get details like clouds heights, and is free for short term forecasts, $19/yr if you want 10 forecasts.
 
Greg Lutz said:
Weatherspork looks nice but it does not appear to do what AVXCWX does which is weather over distance browsable by time. And, yes free is important to me. I already give Garmin plenty of my money for this publicly available data
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See the slider at the bottom? I can see from today until Monday morning and I can see every station along the route. I can do the same in a vertical view as well to see cloud levels, icing and winds.

Screenshot_20230505_062447_WeatherSpork.jpg

But yes, it requires like $50 a year. There is another one called EZwxbrief that I've used as well. Very similar.
 
MooneyDriver78 said:
Windy does it graphically, but you have to select points to get details like clouds heights, and is free for short term forecasts, $19/yr if you want 10 forecasts.
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Yes Windy can go 10 days out but it's not as easy to visualize. I use both Windy with a premium subscription and WeatherSpork, along with aviationweather.gov and a few other tools.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
See the slider at the bottom? I can see from today until Monday morning and I can see every station along the route. I can do the same in a vertical view as well to see cloud levels, icing and winds.

View attachment 117073

But yes, it requires like $50 a year. There is another one called EZwxbrief that I've used as well. Very similar.
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Yeah, I did not glean that from the screenshot on their website. Anyhow, AVXCWX is free and quick. Again, not meant to be a preflight tool, just a means to ascertain the likelihood of a successful trip over the next few days.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
See the slider at the bottom? I can see from today until Monday morning and I can see every station along the route. I can do the same in a vertical view as well to see cloud levels, icing and winds.

View attachment 117073

But yes, it requires like $50 a year. There is another one called EZwxbrief that I've used as well. Very similar.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don’t like that presentation.

I like this style :

http://www.ogimet.com/gramet_aero.phtml.en

Makes it easier to visualize clouds heights so I know what cruising altitude to fly.

The icon presentation doesn’t give me that information.
 
OK, 1800wxbried and Aviation Weather Center have prog charts for several days.

What does this do that those do not?????
 
I’ve gotten in the habit of reading the forecast discussions. Sometimes there are some real nuggets. I canceled an xc yesterday. TAFs looked ok enough along my route, but I got suspicious when I read the discussions. The forecasters were really low confidence, but they went with the forecast they had. They mentioned the chances of pop-up TS, where, when, and intensity, but they couldn’t justify adding that to the TAFs. They did say to expect amended TAFs. And sure enough, there were pop-up yellow and red cells just like they figured, and right on my planned route.
 
Chrisgoesflying said:
Super cool. Going right into my bookmarks. One suggestion, would be nice to have the temps in C instead of F. When I think aviation, I always think C instead of F and that's what the ATIS gives you as well.
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do both C and F, if possible.
 
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