DrJack RASP BLIPMAPs for New Zealand

1. North Island, north west of Hamilton - NOT IN SERVICE
2. North Island, south east of Hamilton - NOT IN SERVICE
3. South Island, north of the Rangitata river
4. South Island, south of the Rangitata river

NOTE: North Island forecasts are currently turned off, the processing time is just too much! Please contact me if you would like to provide additional server processing time.

Regional Atmospheric Soaring Prediction Boundary Layer Information Prediction maps is a specialized weather analysis tool intended for glider pilots. The tool that generates the maps was written by "Dr Jack", a meteorologist and glider pilot. This site however, is produced completely independently from DrJack.

Please note that this site is still a work in progress, so things can change from time to time, hopefully for the better.

New developments

January 2010

• Have temporarily re-enabled the North Island forecasts while there is a gliding competition in Drury.
• Have unfortunately had to stop the North Island forecasts again, but I am working on a solution.
• Removed a lot of forecast types that were not that interesting or useful to save on space and bandwidth.
• Changed the timezone to be NZDT like it should, and added more forecast hours.

September 2009

• Switched the RASP data source to use the new NOAA NOMAD high-availability cluster. This means that RASP should be significantly more reliable from now on.
• We think the server problems are now fixed (turned out to be software) so RASP is running for the South Island again.
• RASP is unfortunately turned off at the moment while we investigate what seems to be a hardware error on the server. Because RASP needs so much server resources it is unfortunately the thing that makes the server fall over and die. Hopefully we will figure out what the problem is soon so that we can fix it, at which point I'll reenable RASP forecasts for the South Island.

July 2009

• RASP has been turned off for a while, it was just taking too much processing time on the server. I've now re-enabled it for the South Island only (since that is where I am). Sorry about that North Islanders, in 9 months or so the server will probably be replaced with a beefier one if nobody volunteers a server I can use.

April 2009

• Added the region map on the front page.
• Tweaked a bunch of the other plots to give them fixed colours. Much better now.
• Tweaked the rain forecast scale, and ended up making the scale fixed for thermal updraft (and derivatives), CAPE, and upper level vertical velocity. It is now much easier to view these using the Image Browser mode.
• Added rain forecasts.
• Added some missing forecasts to the central north island region.

March 2009

• Added this New Developments log you're reading and tried to remember all the work I've done on RASP this year.
• Added some help text for soundings, including a PDF document written by Dr Ian M. Brooks at the University of Leeds.
• Added an "Image browser" to make it easier to view all the times of a particular plot in a convenient way by just moving the mouse pointer over the time you want to see.
• Changed forecasts to be hourly. A full days forecast for all the four regions now take between 280-350 megs; about 10 gigs per month.
• The plot type, date and time is now displayed in the browser title bar and at the top of each plot page.
• Did some behind-the-scene refactoring of code. The website is now approaching 1,000 lines written in 28 files.
• Upgraded to the latest RASP code, after DrJack fixed a serious bug.

February 2009

• Added sounding and cross-section for Queenstown. Other sites can be added on request.

January 2009

• Archived forecasts are now permanently deleted after 3 months. It is possible to mark days to not be deleted on request.

Disclaimer: Use at your own risk. Do not use for protection of life or property. No liability is accepted for the use of this website in any way.

Comments? Email me: mats at zakalwe dot com