Updated Deceber
LuckGrib is one of those applications. The design goal for the application is to present a simple user experience, without sacrificing the power and flexibility you expect from a first class application. ‘The Biggest Little Yacht Club in the World’ FAKAALOFA LAHI ATU The Niue Yacht Club has, since its inception, been a voluntary organization. A small group of dedicated people interested in things nautical. OpenCPN can read both the original gribfile format, known as Grib1, as well as the new Grib2 format, with the.grb2 or.grib2 file-extension. To learn more about the various grib formats and models available, see this Luckgrib (Apple App) page. See this Introduction to NBM Oceanic Winds which introduces probability to the results.
2020spire
LuckGrib was able to ingest and show them in a pretty slick UI, but only showed me visibility, not ceiling. NOAA's Weather and Climate Toolkit, along with gribfilter, was able to ingest the ceiling and visibility data. Degrib can also ingest it and convert it to kml.
About this page
A list of many GRIB and similar services, whether received by email, FTP (File Transfer Protocol) directly downloading to a PC or tablet or on a web browser.
Luckgrib Models
This page will help users to decide which is best for them. I am trying to keep up to date with the many services that are becoming available and the page will never be up to date, but it will be a start for many,
Related pages
List of Services
This is a listing of GRIB and similar services. Most large area forecasts are taken directly from the US NOAA GFS (Global Forecast System.) Alternatives are the CMC GEM (Canadian Global Environmental Model), the US Navy NAVGEM, the French ARPEGE and the German (DWD) ICON. The two leading models, ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts) and the UK UM (Unified model) have, until recently, only been available in GRIB form on repayment. A limited amount of data are now available from PredictWind.ECMWF forecasts can also be seen free on the Windy.com website and app. They can be seen in chart form on the ECMWF Chart catalogue.
There is now Spire a model of unknown provenance run by Spire, a firm that has launched a constellation of micro satellites to measure radio occultation from Global Navigation Satellites.
ECMWF and the UK UM run global models on grid of about 9 km and 10 or 11 km. Like most other models, the GFS uses a grid spacing of about 13 km, 0.125 degree but provides GRIB data on a 0.25 degree grid, about 25 km. It has to be remembered that the effective resolution of any model is about 4 or 5 grid lengths. Some GRIB viewers interpolate between model grids so giving a false impression of resolution.
Forecasts on finer scales are referred to as “Meso-scale” or “LAM” (Limited Area.Models.) These include:
- COAMPS – a US Navy weather LAM.
- WRF – a US Weather Research and Forecast Model used by several 'non-official' groups, Usually about 12 km WRF is a successor to the ETA model.
- OpenSkiron is a University of Athens model based on the ETA but using a 0.05 degree (~5 km) grid. Mediterranan only.
- OpenWRF Provides WRF forecasts on a 4km and 12km grid, Mediterranan and E Aylantic.
- HIRLAM – used by several European countries. Resolution down to about 2 km.
- UK4 covers from mid-Atlantic to the Urals on a 4 km grid. UKV, a British Isles 1.5 km model.
- ALADDIN. A Météo France model
- AROME. A Météo France limited area model
- HARMONIE. Similar to HIRLAM. Developed in association with AROME.
- ICON' (EU). Icosahedral Non-hydrostatic model. A DWD regional version of their global with a global grid of about 7 km.
- COSMO (DE) . A national scale version of ICON.
- NEMS NOAA Environmental Modelling System. Similar to the UK Unified Model. First used operationally for LAM use such as the North American Model – NAM or HRRR.
There are many more.
Service | Free? | Notes | Models |
Email GRIB services | |||
Elsewhere on this site general GRIB information and GRIB viewers | |||
Saildocs Or on my Saildocs page | Y | Very flexible, many elements. Repeat request facility. Needs careful formatting. |
|
Y | Easier to use but less facilities. | GFS | |
File Transfer Protocol – direct download to a PC and/or a tablet. Some available vi email also. | |||
Global views with winds in streamline form. Not very easy to use for sailing decisions but a great to view large scale weather. Given the size of a global data set, it is not clear what is the resolution of the downloaded data. | |||
Y |
| GFS, ECMWF (Both to 10 days), ICON-EU (to 5 days.) | |
Ventusky | GFS & GEM 10 days. ICON 8 days. LAMs ICOn-EU 60 hours days. COSMO-DE 36 hours, US HRRR | ||
Y/N | Realistic view on a globe that can be spun to any location. Great for seeing the Roaring Forties, | ECMWF (to 2 days) free. 10 days on prepayment | |
Selected or pre-selected areas | |||
XyGrib | Y | Many elements. | GFS 10 days, ICON 8 days, ARPEGE 4 days, ICON-EU, NAM (USA, Caribbean, Hawaii), ARPEGE-EU, AROME 0.025 |
Y/N | Several elements including currents. Limited free version. Also Weather routing. | GFS, ECMWF, UK UM, PredictWind (CSIRO), Spire. HRRR, NAM, AROME | |
Y/N | Several elements including currents. Limited free version. Also Weather routing. | GFS. Several LAMs, | |
Open Skironl |
| Mediterranean and Black Sea. | University of Athens (ETA) model 10 km |
Mediterranean round to British Isles. | WRF 4 and 12 km res | ||
European waters | DWD ICON-EU 7 km | ||
Dover Strait to Bornholm. | COSMO-DE 2.5 km | ||
YR.NO | Y | Norwegian Met service Meso-scale. Northern N Sea and Scandinavia. | HIRLAM. Wind and currents. |
KNMI Mesoscale | Y | Eight areas Ijsselmeer to Dover, two day forecasts, several elements or wind only.. | HARMONIE 2.5 km |
For these last six URLs can be used to get data via Saildocs email, maybe rather large file. | |||
Y | Many elements, several wave models. Many extra “non-GRIB” facilities. Currents as optional extra. | GFS | |
Y | Many elements, Optional email facility | GFS | |
Y | Many elements, Good chart projections | GFS | |
Y | Fairly basic. Most intuitive. Good chart display |
Many elements, | |
Y | Many elements including currents. Two day version is free. Also Weather routing. | ||
N | This navigation app generates an email request to Saildocs. | GFS | |
WindFindeer | Y | Several elements, Limited area forecasts not ,not everywhere in Europe | WRF |
Chartplotters | |||
Y | Several elements, | GFS | |
Y | Several elements, | GFS | |
Browser services for preselected areas - Resolution 10 – 25 km | |||
Y | Several elements, | GFS | |
Y | Few elements, Areas not particularly useful for sailing. Good source of actual. Limited coverage | GFS | |
Y | Many elements, | Several | |
The following all from Meteociel.fr | |||
Y | Individual countries, Atlantic, Europe. Many elements Up to 4 days Many elements.Resolution 1.3 km for AROME, 4-8 km generally otherwise. |
| |
Germany – S Baltic | |||
Spain – Western Med | |||
Italy – Central Med. | |||
Browser Services, mainly Limited area models, < 10km res., 3-days - National Weather Services | |||
Y | Wind and pressure only | HIRLAM or HARMONIE | |
Y | Several elemens, sea state and currents | ||
Y | Wind, sea state and currents/ | ||
Denmark | Y | Wind, swell, sea temperature, currents | |
Y | Wind, sea state, temperature. Currents | ||
| Sweden | Y | Few elements | |
Y | Wind, rain, temperature. | ||
Y | Many elements | UK 4km, 1-5km. WRF | |
Y | Waves only | HIRLAM | |
Y | Wind and wave for E Channel, Channel Isles, Bay of St Malo | UK Met Office 4km | |
France via Meteociel.fr | Y | Several elements. Seven coubtries. | AROME, 2,5 km grid |
Germany via Meteociel.fr | Y | Several elements. Seven cpuntries | ICON-EU, 7km grid |
| Spain | Y | Wind and sea state | HIRLAM |
Y | Wind and sea state | WRF | |
Y | Wind and sea state | Akaddin | |
Y | Wind and sea state | ?? | |
Y | Few elements, Mediterranean and Black Sea. And meteograms | WRF 13.5 km grid. Uses ECMWF 0.125 degree data input | |
Other services of limited area forecasts | |||
Y | As far as is known, none of these models starts with a detailed analysis on the grid used. | Probaly WRF | |
Y |
| ||
Y | |||
Predictwind.com, | N | A CSIRO model | |
N | Many National Met service models including GFS, ECMWF, HIRLAM, AROME, ARPEGE, GEM, NAM, WW3. Most will start with good data analyses. | ||
ECMWF
A service that doe not fit easily into any of the above ia ECMWF Available on a browser, this shows many outputs from the centre. Many are not useful to sailors. Ten-day forecasts of surface weather abd sea state, rainfall, cloud cover are useful for a good overall view. Tapping on didplays brings up ensemble data showing how much output can vary depending on initial dta analysis.
NOTE
Limited area/meso-scale forecasts
National weather service limited area models start with detailed data analyses to produce detailed short period forecasts. This requires access to and the ability to process masses of data from space and terrestrial based observing systems. As far as I am aware, no other producer of Numerical Weather Prediction Model output (GRIBs) has the ability to do so. Although their models can handle topographic effects well their forecasts will suffer by lack of detailed meteorological data.
Luckgrib For Windows
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