To get Digital Forecasts, Soundings, or Topo Maps, select a location by pointing with the mouse and left click to select it. Weather data retrieved will be the data for the closest grid point to the latitude and longitude selected. For instance, the mm5 report from Blanchard launch is centered on a point midway between Lummi and Samish Islands.
Lat/Lon of selected location
←New Latitude
←New Longitude


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or click on the site below for which you want information.

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If you want information for some other Latitude and Longitude enter them in the textboxes below.
New Latitude → New Longitude →        

National Weather Service:      
. | .
Univ. of Washington:
RUC and HRR/RAP soundings:
Misc: MAPS/RUC Soundings by hour
Forecasts by SpotWxSpotWX.com: → SpotWx
Maps:    Google NorthWet Flying Sites Map with Windgrams and Blipspots RASP wxtofly.net

Lat and Lon for sites have been chosen to get forecasts that are both nearby and more importantly at the same elevation. If you think there are better coordinates to use please let me know. TJ Aug 2013 Revamped entire site menu to use the existing windgram site data
and added the ability to get windgrams or blipspots
Added icons for the sources of the maps/data
Removed non-working links to canadian topo data at http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/topo
July-Aug 2013 Added links for point and click Spotwx.com
Changed the format for NWS meteograms and added mixing height and transport winds (average boundary layer winds). Removed some non-functional links. Added numeric Raw HRR1/RAP soundings.
Added link to google based usgs maps at http://listsofjohn.com
See also Mountain-forecast.com for mountain peaks.
Dec 25, 2007 Added a mechanism to check for the completion of the 4km soundings and meteograms so the most recent available will be generated.

Feb 7, 2008 Learned that sounding generator and meteo generator can use date=current_gfs just like the preset station urls. June 5, 2008 Added button for the newer Weather Underground map interface with layers, meso stations, and personal stations.
Direct links below:
Baldy: http://www.wunderground.com/stationmaps/gmap.asp?lat=46.79725&lon=-120.4446&zoom=10
Saddle: http://www.wunderground.com/stationmaps/gmap.asp?lat=46.8179&lon=-119.8582&zoom=9
Chelan: http://www.wunderground.com/stationmaps/gmap.asp?lat=47.80373&lon=-120.0386&zoom=10
Tibbitts: http://www.wunderground.com/stationmaps/gmap.asp?lat=47.57663&lon=-120.4834&zoom=10
Tiger: http://www.wunderground.com/stationmaps/gmap.asp?lat=47.50022&lon=-122.0219&zoom=11
TriCities: http://www.wunderground.com/stationmaps/gmap.asp?lat=46.25144&lon=-119.31861&zoom=11

This page references several different sources for spot forecasts. Most are in some way attached to the National Weather Service. The mm5 soundings and meteograms are the exception, being generated by the folks at University of Washington.

Canadian Forecasts are only available for some of the different forecast types. 12km GFS both soundings and metograms, RUC2 and Maps soundings. None of the digital forecasts are available for Canada, except Deifenbaker Park, which has a USA grid point 2 blocks away. Maps of Canadian sites are availble from the Google links and from the separate Atlas Canada links below. The Atlas Canada maps are excellent, but very cumbersome to load.

* The 4 Blanchard buttons are there because Blanchard sits on a cusp between grid points for both the WRF model and the MM5 model. One reason the forecasts are rarely "right on". For mm5, the left, westerly button is for a grid point somewhere on a line between Lummi Island and Samish Island and thus is giving an over-the-water forecast. The Easterly grid point is quite a few miles inland from Blanchard but does give an over-the-land forecast.

The WRF Blanchard buttons, that read "Launch" and "LZ" give forecasts for very different altitudes, the LZ button is at 0, and the Launch button at 1240'. Unfortunately, neither one takes into account the abrubt change in topography, with Blanchard essentially a 1500' bluff at the water's edge.

Note that both Ft. Ebey and Smith Island coordinates generate the same meteogram and sounding from the MM5. The one for KNUW Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, is different. This means that according to MM5, the forecast for Ft. Ebey is the SAME as the forecast for Smith Island and different from the NAS. Experience has shown that the winds an the Fort can be quite different from Smith Island and from the NAS, so ask a long time Whidbey person for interpretation of the data. Remember that "Whidbey is On" may mean anything from steady 8 mph from SW to gusty 25+mph from the WNW, depending on who is saying it.
I haven't thoroughly explored the differences for these two with the WRF digital forecasts.

There is some bias on the map coordinates that differs from browser to browser. You can compensate for it if you know the actual coordinates of some spot, e.g. the 49° for the US-Canadian Border.

If you work out similar biases for other flying sites than Whidbey or Blanchard, let me know and I will incorporate the information here.

Topographic maps generated come either from Google Maps, terraserver-usa.com, or for the Canadian maps, from Atlas Canada.


Acknowledgements: This page uses a modified point and click routine and map image from the NWS radar pages.