We spoke up about some problems we had with the BLIPMAPS and Dr.
Jack got on the case. He wrote:

I read your Monday report about wildly differing forecast winds
between the BLIPMAP RUC and other models. Such large wind differences between
models should not occur (particularly between the NCEP RUC and the FSL RUC), so
I knew there was a problem somewhere. That was my task for today, but was
luckily considerably helped by a sharp-eyed user posting to my Forum this AM
about his local RUC (BLIPSPOT) forecasts for today being identical to
yesterday's.



I now find that since around March 19 you've had a 50-50 chance of getting
forecasts for the previous day - some times might have forecasts for the correct
day whereas others would not. A subtle problem indeed, the details of which is
discussed at:



http://www.drjack.info/cgi-bin/WEBBBS/webbbs_config.pl/frames/read/1406#1406




I've also posted there a comparison of the RUC vs NAM wind forecasts for
yesterday (Tues) - such wildly differing forecasts would confuse anyone.



I've now implemented a fix and also added an new test of the data file internal
date. So you should now find RUC and NAM winds in much better agreement. :-)



 In looking for your email address in my inbox emails, to send this email
to, I was surprised to stumble upon an email you sent back on March 17
documenting a similar problem! My mailer's got a "replied" mark next to it but I
can't find any such reply in my "sent mail" box. And frankly I have no memory of
your email itself or of any reply!



My suspicion is that I overlooked that email (not the first time such would have
occurred, I'm afraid) in which case I apologize - the problem would not have
gone unfixed for so long if I had been paying more attention. (Or it's possible
that I looked at the forecasts myself and found, as I would have a 50-50 chance
of doing, no difference and so dismissed further investigation - but as I say
whatever happened back then is lost to my memory - getting old I'm afraid.)



I just located my "sent mail" reply your email of March 17 - looks like I
thought I had solved your problem. There was a lot going on at that time since I
was making significant coding changes with the switch to the new format and I
remember there were several problems that cropped up and needed fixing. My
suspicion now is that I had thought your problem was due to one of the errors
that I had found and fixed whereas in reality it might have been due to the
error I found today.

It's great to be of some help to Dr. Jack and I'm glad to see that
he solved this little problem. We rely on his forecasts, but with trust comes
verification and when the verifications started going awry I was confused. There
shouldn't be any difference between the two RUC data displays.