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< Races ~ Summary of latest weather update situation |
| ChrisBSS |
 Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 1:41 pm |
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Joined: 10 Dec 2007
Posts: 484
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For a definitive statement on weather updates in the game (or not) see
http://www.liveskipper.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=861&start=0
Alternatively (for those who cannot be bothered to look at the previous post)
Admin said the following
The Game uses the NOAA weather files.
Weather is uploaded on liveskipper each morning at 6 O'clock UTC for the full day.
InGame, Wind changed every 3 hours.
Resolution of 0.5°
There's no weather update from 21h00 UTC to 6h00 UTC:
A 10 minutes delay is also possible for each update, to sum up here is the full update list:
- (6H00 or 6H10) UTC
- (9H00 or 9H10) UTC
- (12H00 or 12H10) UTC
- (15H00 or 15H10) UTC
- (18H00 or 18H10) UTC
- (21H00 or 21H10) UTC
The weather is taken from the daily forecasts which you can download from different places from the internet as grib files. One such place is http://www.grib.us/ There you can register and download the program to read those files too. Unless you use a Mac in which case you need to ask someone that uses a Mac.
And once for all NOAA and Ugrib are the same.
NOAA provides the raw data, Ugrib is the software to display those datas:
http://www.grib.us/FAQ/tabid/54/Default.aspx
You need to note the following from this
1. The game is divided into 30 x 30 minute cells (or half a deg by Half a deg) each with their own wind direction and speed. (at 30kts boat speed these take I hour to cross)
2. These cells are updated on a three hourly schedule starting at 0600hrs however currently not UTC/GMT (as advertised above) but UTC+1 or CET so the schedule is
0600CET=0500UTC
0900CET=0800UTC
1200CET=1100UTC
1500CET=1400UTC
1800CET=1700UTC
2100CET=2000UTC
3. These updates can occur at anything up to 10 minutes past the hour and every cell is updated at once.
4. Wind is based on Grib models which are available from various sources (see above). The weather is downloaded between 0400 and 0500 and applied to the system at 0500UTC = 0600CET.
5. It is unclear which page of the download is applied (we estimate this may vary depending on the download) but generally we believe the first page is implimented (the gribs are divided into 3 hour pages) so if the download is of the 0000 Grib then by the time the weather is implemented it is already 5-6 hours behind the clock.
6. At 2000UTC=2100CET the system is frozen and there are no further updates of the cells until the new Grib is implemented the following morning. Weather can still change as you move from cell to cell, but the weather visible on the game viewer as shaded arrows will remain static from 2000UTC for approximately 9 hours every night.
7. It is under discussion as to what improvements may be made to this system to aid in forecasting and planing, but with the Christmas holidays it is unlikely that any changes will be made now until the new year.
Hope this helps
ChrisBSS/ChrisB |
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