Honestly, it was like getting a late Christmas present. Setting this forecasting model up and getting it to run has been incredibly tedious. RASP is a tempermental set of several programs and scads of parameter files with such a steep learning curve, I was really starting to wonder if I was going to get it to run.
The breakthrough came early this month when I managed to get the system to generate a single stage forecast for the default region and then a 2 stage windowed forecast at higher resolution. At that point, I knew that I had a working model but needed to build a region for Harris Hill.
The GUI tool for building the region turns out to be tempermental too, but in a different and more annoying way. I'll spare you the details since all is forgiven now that I've managed to build and run a 2 stage forecast for a custom region.
Now, the real fun begins! I've assembled a group of our local soaring weather experts and asked them to help in validating that the model outputs the right answer. For all I know, it's making predictions that have no basis in reality. I really haven't taken the time to compare its accuracy.
First challenge is to get the data out onto a server that they can look at. Then, I'll try to actually build a web page that will organize the information in a way that makes it easier for them to review.
God help us if the model isn't accurate. There's so many knobs and settings I could tweak that require meteorological expertise I could easily make it worse by changing any of them!
