How I keep track of weather:
Basically just a bunch of weather widgets on my laptop. I put my cursor in the lower left corner of my screen and this is what pops up. Roughly speaking West to East from left to right. I find that looking at the IR satellite animations that I have on the left side (Pacific, Pacific coast, and US) gives me an idea of what is and what is coming. Then across the top I have Doppler radar animations: Northwest, Montana, then US Below that the forecast animations: Northwest Temperatures, Northwest Precipitation, and US combined. Across the bottom forecast widgets for common destinations, with the weatherbug ones that have current winds for my homebase BZN) and most common airports.
Any other other widgets I should be looking at? The complete lack of effort required works well for me. I of course look at the official TAFs before going crosscountry, but I find this setup useful for maintaining general awareness and "training my brain" to generate it's own forecasts... I am constantly creating a "mental forecast" based on my interpretation of the maps, and then comparing the results to the TAF or local TV forecast... I should document it I suppose, but I think I am better for the local area at least.![Wink ;) ;)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
Hans
![WXWidgets-1.png](/community/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi86.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fk114%2Fnucleus33%2FWXWidgets-1.png&hash=ae7336a43fd0d0ff0828c80074aa4b04)
Basically just a bunch of weather widgets on my laptop. I put my cursor in the lower left corner of my screen and this is what pops up. Roughly speaking West to East from left to right. I find that looking at the IR satellite animations that I have on the left side (Pacific, Pacific coast, and US) gives me an idea of what is and what is coming. Then across the top I have Doppler radar animations: Northwest, Montana, then US Below that the forecast animations: Northwest Temperatures, Northwest Precipitation, and US combined. Across the bottom forecast widgets for common destinations, with the weatherbug ones that have current winds for my homebase BZN) and most common airports.
Any other other widgets I should be looking at? The complete lack of effort required works well for me. I of course look at the official TAFs before going crosscountry, but I find this setup useful for maintaining general awareness and "training my brain" to generate it's own forecasts... I am constantly creating a "mental forecast" based on my interpretation of the maps, and then comparing the results to the TAF or local TV forecast... I should document it I suppose, but I think I am better for the local area at least.
Hans