cavok

I think the altitude on Windyty's site is given as above mean sea level. If you look over SE Aust, areas near the ranges are coming up with no wind at 2000 feet, which wouldn't be true if it's AGL.

Great to hear everyone's good experience with this tool. I think in terms of aviation graphical forecasting, BoM has nothing similar to this website yet. I agree with Mark that the computing power required to produce these every 4-6 hours or so would be massive. In saying so, the one graphical forecasting tool I do regularly look at on the BoM website is their MetEye product. http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/meteye/ To me, MetEye is NOT a one stop shop for flight planning (there's no levels, just surface conditions). But it paints a decent picture of where and when they're expecting weather like showers, drizzle, TS, fog etc. It seems to be updated twice a day about 5am and 5pm as well. Tony

Wow, this site is fantastic! It appears they use the GFS model which is the United States global forecasting model. Would be interested in seeing how well the data verifies against actual observations.

Hi billwoodmason, thanks. I've only flown once and that was out of Lilydale airport. I'm exploring the options out there for beginners in Essendon and Moorabbin though.

Hi Vev, I noticed that Tyabb was under low cloud (bkn <2000ft) all day Saturday and most of Sunday morning. Did that affected many of the shows they were planning for Sunday?

G'day all, my wife bought me some flying lessons for my birthday and I'm keen to see how it goes. Anyway, I have a strong interest in weather and meteorology and look forward to reading your posts!