msdawg911 have you registered your trial version yet? If so how is it going? Also have you tried WXSIMATE the companion to it that allows automated Internet retrival of data and personal weather station data?
I have the trial and am tinkering with it but as you say this program is quite sophisticated and not just a run/setup and be done with it, the manual is a must read. Which is a good thing in this case, the sophistication it has brings power/accuracy.
What I would like to do before all is said and done is since it does not have any built in way of getting your forecast published to your site, is once I have it to a certain point I feel comfortable with it's forecast, is upload the data and format it for my site, maybe place it right under the NOAA and have them go at it so to speak, side by side.
Here is some of the customization that Tom describes on his site:
# Geographical data, including latitude, longitude, elevation, and time zone. You could potentially enter this kind of information yourself, but it would be a bit tedious.
# Climatological data, consisting of parameters describing normal temperature, dew point, and 'water temperature' for the site. Also included are data on average wind speed relative to large scale flow, and diurnal variation of wind speed.
# Parameters describing surface type (ground cover), continental versus maritime aspects of the site, and degree of urbanization (which can be changed at run time). Some of this information is used to help estimate default soil moisture and the reflectivity of snow cover.
# Parameters describing the distances and directions to large bodies of water, along with allowance for island locations and data concerning sea breeze strength.
# Information about the most significant mountain ranges affecting the area's weather. This includes distance, direction, angular span, and effective height of the mountains. In some customizations it may also include mountain/valley breeze parameters.
# Parameters influencing diurnal temperature range and overall temperature bias. This is an especially critical area, for which I do a lot of careful testing and tweaking.
# Various other items, some of which are not used in all customizations. These include dependence of diurnal tempreature range on wind direction and on time of year (mainly for agricultural sites with a lot of transpiration from crops in summer), and tendency for short-term temperature fluctuations affecting reported maximum and minimum temperatures.
# Advection sites. I choose a large number of surrounding official reporting sites (METAR and/or synoptic, and in many cases buoys). This usually includes most or all stations within a couple hundred miles, and more scattered ones at distances of up to (sometimes over) 1200 miles (2000 km). For most North American and European sites, I select about 260-290 advection sites, though sparsely populated regions will naturally have less. The data includes distance and direction as well as elevation correction information.
# FOUS sites. For U.S. and some Canadian sites, I choose three NGM/ETA FOUS sites, among which WXSIM can interpolate to estimate values at the home site. This data is not available outside North America, though fortunately the GFS model, available from the READY site, has world-wide coverage.
# RAOB sites. I always choose three surrounding RAOB (upper air) sites from which WXSIM can interpolate upper air conditions at the home site.
# Information about the most significant mountain ranges affecting the area's weather. This includes distance, direction, angular span, and effective height of the mountains. In some customizations it may also include mountain/valley breeze parameters.
Wheeew, Tom ain't playin games
