schinz Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 Hello, I am not a real technical person when it comes to weather but I am looking for a software program I can buy or download that will enable me to forecast Lake Effect Snow in SW Ny State. In the absence of a program, is there any one computer model that can be used to glean the info from? I am looking for both longer term <1 Week or so> outlooks or "potential" as well as more specific potential for short term events. Any help anyone could give me would be appreciated. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heavy_wx Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 Hello, I am not a real technical person when it comes to weather but I am looking for a software program I can buy or download that will enable me to forecast Lake Effect Snow in SW Ny State. In the absence of a program, is there any one computer model that can be used to glean the info from? I am looking for both longer term <1 Week or so> outlooks or "potential" as well as more specific potential for short term events. Any help anyone could give me would be appreciated. Thanks. One of the most useful pieces of software for lake effect snow forecasting is BUFKIT. It can be used to display forecast soundings (vertical profiles of the amosphere) from various NCEP models such as the NAM, GFS and SREF. It is ideal for lake effect forecasting because you can set the current lake temperature and BUFKIT will calculate the lake induced instability and tell you if that amount of instability is conditional, moderate or extreme with respect to lake effect snow development. Also, viewing forecast soundings is useful to determine the amount of wind shear and the depth of the boundary layer. Bufkit also has a map feature that, based on the forecast low level wind speeds, draws a box indicating where lake effect is favored to occur. In terms of longer range prediction of lake effect, it is generally hard to know where lake effect will setup a few days in advance, let alone a week. However, looking at the large scale pattern forecast from the Euro or GFS may give you some idea a week out whether there might be cold air in place. You can also use the models to look for consistency and trends in the mid-level height fields to get a sense of what wind directions are more likely to occur. You can download BUFKIT from this website http://wdtb.noaa.gov...FKIT/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schinz Posted October 21, 2012 Author Share Posted October 21, 2012 Thanks so much, however, for some reason I am having trouble unzipping and running the setup exe. IT keeps telling me error. Is there some trick to it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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