PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Met Office Weather Forecast? Hmmmmmmm....
Old 22nd Jun 2008, 11:20
  #73 (permalink)  
IO540
 
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As an IFR pilot, I would like to see data on cloud tops.

It is 100% certain this data exists, from satellite imagery, but I have never found anything which is reasonably real time (less than 1hr old, say) and with usable resolution.

IR images will do the job because they show temperatures of cloud tops, from which one can work the cloud top altitude backwards, with a useful accuracy.

Presumably commercial considerations are holding it back.

I have consistently found the forecasts on the SigWx form to be close to hopeless. 5000ft out, easily, which is OK if the tops are forecast at FL120 because I can go to FL200. Meteoblue (working mostly off GFS) is no better and they don't run their model very often anyway.
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