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« Last post by gszlag on April 20, 2024, 08:56:29 AM »
This discussion reminds me of the interesting arguments discussions with GeorgeR back in the earlier days of this forum. George was the resident pressure expert at the time and a SLP champion.
There were many "my pressure is better than your pressure" (Altimeter vs SLP) arguments.
In this forum, for our equipment, our barometers are different. You can't enter an elevation directly so we have to treat our barometers like altimeters( the instrument) by setting pressure and reading altitude. Our firmware is designed to use a fixed elevation offset. I think Davis refers to this as a "constant offset'. We have to emulate Altimeter setting similar to old VP2 console that was put into fixed offset mode by setting elevation = 0.
Long story short, is that Altimeter is a very important tool for calibration purposes as we need a benchmark without all the additional variable variables in SLP.
But just because I am the world's greatest fan for the the use of Altimeter for calibration purposes, does not mean that I am required to use it for meteorological purposes. Here, the torch is passed on.
I can't envision any discussion about weather by not discussing SLP. There are no Altimeter isobar charts that I can find.
SLP is not an international standard - all American AWOS/ASOS calculate SLP but not all METARs publish it. For weather purposes, SLP is not a "nice to have" it is a "must have". For aviation and safety-critical purposes, Altimeter is a "must have". Other than flight levels, QFF(SLP) is important in the discussion between indicated altitude versus true altitude where temperature's relationship with QNH is paramount (a required test question if you are studying to be a pilot). The discussion of air density is mission critical for meteorology and aviation.
The ideal weather console should have all the pressures easily viewable: station pressure/Altimeter setting/SLP. Whether you prefer one over the other is up to you. For me - I want all of them.
In the meantime, if you have to, do what I do - use WeeWX to generate SLP. The FIne Offset consoles can't do SLP either. Someone on this forum recently said: "WeeWX does everything."
It does.