I like the new additions to the page a lot, especially the new forecast trends area which provides immediate mouse-over access to forecast data/obs for several hours before and after the current image. I have a question, though, about those images... I always was told that the data you see on the mesoanalysis page is simply taken from the latest RUC run, that it's model data and not real current conditions/observations, with the exception of course for things like radar/satellite. Now, however, using the trends capability, you can see a difference between the image for the hour zero obs (the yellow -0 button) and the forecast hour zero data (blue +0 button). At first this made sense because we always knew the RUC mesoanalysis stuff wasn't necessarily representative of the actual conditions on the ground... But the current mesoanalysis image seems to be the same as the yellow -0 hour obs image and not the forecast +0 hour image... So obviously either things have changed, or (more likely) I have it wrong. Could somebody explain exactly what the difference is between the regular current data - what you first see on the page, which also seems to match the -0 hour trends image - and the +0 hour trends image, which is ostensibly the RUC forecast for hour 0. Why is there a difference? Does this mean that the regular image is now coming from actual observed conditions, which would be nice but I highly doubt, or is it all just different kinds of RUC data... Obviously I'm not really understanding the new trends zero hour stuff. Could someone explain it better? Thanks.
