Cold fronts – blue Warm fronts – red Stationary fronts – alternating blue and red Surface low pressure troughs – dashed yellow lines

Recommended Weather Links BalloonCast from BlastValve National Weather Service Cheyenne - Interactive NDFD forecasts National Weather Service Riverton - Interactive NDFD forecasts National Weather Service Boulder - Interactive NDFD forecasts

Outlook Links Current Conditions Radar NWS radar for all of USA, click on map for your location. LAPS If you live in the Rockies or High Plains. This is a great tool near launch time. Select surface and 500 mb wind links before launch time. This product shows you the wind fields all over this region. Current conditions Select your state, then city, then check current as well as the past several hours of weather at this site. Take a look at the past weather and look for TRENDS! UCAR Lots here.

HYSPLIT
Use it to forecast your flight trajectory! This is a great tool if you are planning a record attempt, long jump or longer than normal flight. This can be a confusing site, it is good to read the HELP links and make sure you select a trajectory forecast, NOT A dispersion forecast. Best idea is to play with site until you get used to it. Here you can see where the winds will take you at a variety of altitudes that you select as well as where you may end up.

Texas A&M
Click here to get a text forecast from the NAM and GFS. This forecast will break down the atmosphere in 6 hour increments from the surface to the troposphere. The levels are broken down into standard aviation levels (1000mb, 850mb, 700mb, etc.) Both sights require the 3 letter station identifier (ie, cys, den, fcl).

Rapid Update Cycle Wind Profile forecast (RUC)

Soundings from RUC (Java Version) — more options and more models
This is a nifty link. Enter the three letter airport identifier and select the date and expected time of your flight and this model will give you a vertical wind forecast (scroll below the Skew-T chart) in very small (50 to 100 foot) intervals. Please note the grid point location the forecast is for, relative to your launch site (ie, gridpoint could be as much as 10 miles away from your launch site).

Ryan Carlton's Site (RUC)
Choose your location in upper right and corner.

Golden Gate Weather NCEP Loops
Great site to access the GFS and ETA models as well as the ECMWF models. GFS and ETA updated 4 times a day!

ECMWF
This is a 2 to 6 day outlook from a European model. It is good to compare this model to the MRF above to check for consistency. If the two models are not similar in their pattern this is a sign of uncertainty in the long range forecast, if so be wary of the long range forecasts!

Plymouth State University Archive – great resource.

Radar Archive – available as far as 5 days in the past.