A grid to help you find the "7 pm CDT" maps on the GFS forecast model

Joined
Apr 22, 2009
Messages
230
Location
preferrably near a storm
I thought I'd post this to assist other noob forecasters with reading the medium/long range forecast models of the GFS. Apologies up front if this has been covered elsewhere, please add links to the other threads if it has, thanks!

So I guess I'm showing my old-school tech savvy here...I'm sure someone's got an app or something more trippy that will calculate this quicker and easier...I'm just old fashioned (relatively speaking) LOL...

I don't know about anyone else, but for me one of the challenges of learning forecasting is to read the GFS medium/long range computer models and which ones are of the 7 pm CDT time slot (few things worse than looking at a map and suddenly figuring out your looking at a 7AM or a 1PM map forecast).

So after going over the numbers in my head multiple times over the last 2 years and getting tired of it, I finally sat down and put together this simple grid to show which hours to look at, depending on the run (00, 06, 12, 18). I checked my math and believe it's correct. If not, please let me (us) know so it can be corrected. You are welcome to copy/paste it for personal use if you like. (sorry for any formatting alignment problems...seems copy/paste of text or .odt documents alters the column alignment).

7 pm CDT for GFS forecasts

GFS run: 00 06 12 18
____________________________________________________________

Day 0 0 +18 +12 +6 (day of forecast)

Day +1 24 +42 +36 +30

Day +2 48 +66 +60 +54

Day +3 72 +90 +84 +78

Day +4 96 +114 +108 +102

Day +5 120 +138 +132 +126

Day +6 144 +162 +156 +150

Day +7 168 +186** +180 +174
***********
Day 8 192 +210** +204 +198**

Day 9 216 +234** +228 +222**

Day 10 240 +258** +252 +246**

Day 11 264 +282** +276 +270**

Day 12 288 +306** +300 +294**

Day 13 312 +330** +324 +318**

Day 14 336 +354** +348 +342**
***********
Day 15 360 +378** +372 +366**

Day 16 384 +402*** +396*** +390***
** no equivalent 7pm map for this forecast, either +/- 6 hours
*** GFS doesn't forecast out this far.
 
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