[ATMoB-discuss] what do you use for cloud predictions?

[George Roberts]

I help with 15 or so star parties every year and most of them are left to me to decide if we have a go or no-go situation regarding the clouds.  Therefore I am always looking for better ways to predict clouds.

I asked this question a few years ago and got the best results from Lew Gramer and have used some of his results and found some new ones since then.  I'll post my favorite 2 methods (I have many more!  but they aren't as good!) to get things rolling.

#1) Clear sky clock!  Not the thing on the atmob page, but where you get if you click on it twice -- when you can see the map of predicted clouds for the whole north east and you can step it hour by hour and then using back and forwards you can see the clouds in motion.  This is by far the best resource in my opinion and it's only drawback is that it only goes 36 hours into the future.  This is a problem when for example I'm trying to pick which day we should have a telescope night tues, wed, or thurs and it's Sunday night.

#2) NOAA north east sky cover.  Same as sky clock with less resolution and seems to be much less accurate.  This goes out 6 days into the future.  Go to the following link, click "+12 hrs" until you get to the correct time frame, then hover the mouse over the appropriate time of day next to "Sky cover".  This also has the benefit of being in EST and is much easier to use than the clear sky clock:

http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/graphical/sectors/northeast.php?element=MaxT

#1 shows clouds rolling into Boston from the south west around 4pm today.
#2 shows clouds rolling into Boston from the south west around 5pm today.

- George Roberts
http://gr5.org