OpenSummit

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9patrickmurphy
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OpenSummit

Post by 9patrickmurphy »

Does anyone use OpenSummit for looking at weather when planning excursions? It comes free when you pay for OpenSnow, which already isn't too pricy, so I've ended up using it as a comparison point when looking at weather.

I noticed that they recently changed what data sources they pull from to calculate their forecast, and I'm bringing this up because I'm looking at climbing Lindsey this weekend, but OpenSummit's forecast is disagreeing a ton with NOAA's, my typical go-to. I wouldn't be bothered if they differed slightly, but NOAA says:
A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms before noon, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm between
noon and 3pm, then showers and thunderstorms likely after 3pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 52. Northeast wind
around 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher
amounts possible in thunderstorms.
While OpenSummit shows effectively 0% chance of precipitations or lightening all day, and wind gusts over 40mph. These forecasts are almost complete opposites.

I know there are some big weather nerds on here, and I'm curious to hear your guys' takes.
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Scott P
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Re: OpenSummit

Post by Scott P »

If OpenSummit says that there is a 0% chance of rain in the mountains today then I definitely wouldn't trust it. I think all the higher mountains in Colorado have a pretty good chance of rain today. Which specific peak are you looking at?
Last edited by Scott P on Fri Jul 23, 2021 8:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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daway8
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Re: OpenSummit

Post by daway8 »

Hmm, I've been checking OpenSummit together with the weather linked in this site and have generally seen fairly close correlation, with OpenSummit being maybe slightly more optimistic on average.

Pretty much the whole state has an ugly forecast for tomorrow - that sounds like a fluke in their software to me...
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Re: OpenSummit

Post by 9patrickmurphy »

Scott P wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:26 am If OpenSummit says that there is a 0% chance of rain in the mountains today then I definitely would trust it. I think all the higher mountains in Colorado have a pretty good chance of rain today. Which specific peak are you looking at?
Looking at Mount Lindsey. I assume you meant "wouldn't trust it"?
daway8 wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:30 am Hmm, I've been checking OpenSummit together with the weather linked in this site and have generally seen fairly close correlation, with OpenSummit being maybe slightly more optimistic on average.

Pretty much the whole state has an ugly forecast for tomorrow - that sounds like a fluke in their software to me...
Yeah, they announced recently that they've switched to a new "proprietary blend of global and high-reolution weather model data" (basically, they're pulling from cloudnine and their own data now instead of NOAA), which I'm sure is the culprit of this discrepancy. It seems to have the weather data wrong across the board, at least for the next few days.
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Re: OpenSummit

Post by Scott P »

9patrickmurphy wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 8:13 am
Scott P wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:26 am If OpenSummit says that there is a 0% chance of rain in the mountains today then I definitely would trust it. I think all the higher mountains in Colorado have a pretty good chance of rain today. Which specific peak are you looking at?
Looking at Mount Lindsey. I assume you meant "wouldn't trust it"?
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Re: OpenSummit

Post by daway8 »

9patrickmurphy wrote: Fri Jul 23, 2021 8:13 am Yeah, they announced recently that they've switched to a new "proprietary blend of global and high-reolution weather model data" (basically, they're pulling from cloudnine and their own data now instead of NOAA), which I'm sure is the culprit of this discrepancy. It seems to have the weather data wrong across the board, at least for the next few days.
Forecast for peaks like Bierstadt, Quandary, etc seem to correlate pretty well for this weekend... Looks like an isolated glitch to me.
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Re: OpenSummit

Post by espressoself »

For what it's worth, NOAA/NWS has always been my go-to as well; I've found it to be highly accurate for most of my outings. I really like the graphical forecast, rather than the textual one, to get a better idea of timing on precipitation and lightning. But I sometimes like to look at Windy too, which has a neat model comparison tool (this is for Lindsey):
Screenshot 2021-07-23 092958.png
Screenshot 2021-07-23 092958.png (231.32 KiB) Viewed 1825 times
MeteoBlue seems to be pretty accurate for the alpine, so if the forecast between NAM/MeteoBlue looks pretty similar, I'm inclined to believe it.

I've never used OpenSummit, though, but only because I see no reason to rely on anything else.
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Re: OpenSummit

Post by 9patrickmurphy »

Update: I sent a message to the team at their "feedback" button in the app and got the following response:
As mentioned in the article that we published on July 1, our new forecast data is specifically adjusted for complex mountain environments with large changes in elevation, including precipitation, lightning, temperature, and wind speed calculations.

https://opensummit.com/learn/post/propr ... ecast-data

We've been working on this algorithm over the past year and I can say as an experienced meteorologist with many hours spent above 14,000 feet in the Colorado high country that this is the data that I trust.

NOAA is amazing but their entire focus is on public safety for cities and lowland environments.

I also just looked at the raw model data to confirm our automated forecast for Mount Lindsey and it matches my thinking for the OpenSummit forecast as well.

Sunday looks much wetter due to a push of moisture up from the south compared to a much lower probability of thunderstorms on Saturday. The sustained wind speeds on Saturday will also be around 20 MPH out of the northeast, with gusts of 30-40 MPH.

Please let us know how else we can help and how the forecast performs!
I continue to be skeptical simply for just how much these forecasts differ, it seems like they should agree at least somewhat and not be total opposites of one another. Their comment about NOAA being focused on lowland environments is an interesting point, but in my experience NOAA tends to get weather in the mountains pretty right.
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Re: OpenSummit

Post by jrbren_vt »

Debating whether to do something tomorrow as well, looking at the weather for the nearby town :

https://www.wunderground.com/hourly/us/ ... 2021-07-24
vs.
https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.p ... =graphical
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