• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Confusion about the GFS Model

Joined
Feb 12, 2006
Messages
33
Location
Indiana
Eh I am a little confused (still new at the forecasting bit). I keep seeing the term GFS model thrown around along with 500mb. I did some searching on google to find more about these to understand it a little better. While I think I got the right idea of how many use it on here to forecast where severe weather break out, I myself feel like I am not sure if I am reading it right. I acutally feel like I am jumping in without learning how to swim first.

Take this for example, 6.5 days from now, I look at http://weather.unisys.com . I see that on the 500mb map under GFSx, that looks like western Indiana is in red. The way I look at it, is that could be a possible day for severe weather or at lest a strong storm.

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But I feel like I am missing more then just knowing that a storm is going to hit that area that day.

So my question is... am I trying to read too much into it or I am off in what I am reading? I feel as if I don't understand GFS models that well. I've been looking on Google for more information but I keep running into actual data rather then a definition what I want to figure out. I was wondering if you guys could point me in the right direction or help clear this up a little bit. Thank you for any information you can throw at me. It helps :)
 
One excellent book to get is Tim Vasquez's Weather Map Handbook. This describes the popular models and how to read them.

The GFS is just one of the forecast models. and the 500mb level is only one of several to look for when making your forecast. To make a forecast, I look at the surface, 850, 700, 500, and 250 levels mainly.
 
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