Here's the "Blob Plot" for Dockweiler tomorrow:
- Dockweiler_Forecast_2026-02-17_21-38-30.png (50.54 KiB) Viewed 4953 times
If you're not familiar with this format, it shows the wind that you will see at launch over a period of time. The vertical line in the center is the launch direction, and time progresses from top to bottom.
So the top of the plot is today (2026-02-17), and the remainder of the plot is tomorrow (2026-02-18). The times for tomorrow are shown as horizontal lines (6am, 12noon, 6pm, and midnight).
The current winds are at the top of the plot, and they're shown by the large yellow blob at the center. That blob is slightly to the left of center (by about 15 or 20 degrees) and so it's not ideal. That's why it's yellow rather than green. The yellow blob shows the forecast windspeeds in numbers (33, 36, 36, 36, 33, 33, 33mph). Those are the forecast winds at each hour starting at midnight.
Sometime around 4am, the wind switches to come from the right (northwest) and drops down to 23mph. The direction is about 45 degrees to the right of launch. That blob is shown in red because its direction is greater than 30 degrees from ideal.
Throughout the morning, the speed drops and the direction becomes more westerly. By about 9am, the wind is down to 18mph and is coming in a bit straighter. The yellow blobs are less than 30 degrees off from the site's launch direction.
By about 1pm, the wind gets even straighter. The green blobs indicate that the wind direction is less than 15 degrees from straight in. The wind speed during that time remains at 18mph.
By about 4pm, the wind picks up a couple mph to get to 20, and is also coming just about straight in to launch. That's what a good Blob Plot should look like. It should be green, near the center, and with a wind speed that is good, but not too high.
To finish the day, at around 7pm, the wind switches from the northwest again and drops to 16mph and eventually to 13mph and even more northerly.
The Blob Plot program can be run here:
https://ushawks.org/weather/BlobPlot.htmBelow the plot you'll find two rows of controls. The first thing to do is select the "
Site" in the leftmost box in the first row of controls below the plot. The current sites are: Torrey, Dockweiler, Crestline, Sylmar, Laguna, Elsinore, Horse, Blossom, Otay, Little Black, Soboba, and Funston. You can select whichever site you're interested in seeing. You can also press the
"Load" button to either load or reload the data. The
"Map" button brings up a Google map of the site, and the
"Weather" button brings up the National Weather Service Point Forecast page for that site. That's the data used by the Blob Plot program.
The next field is titled
"Facing", and it shows the direction (in compass degrees) that site is generally facing. That's used to show the blobs relative to launch. You can change that value and you'll see the same blobs, but shifted to the right or left. This is useful for a site that has multiple launch directions. Just type in the appropriate direction, and the blobs will be relative to that direction.
The last field on the first row is labeled
"+/-", and it controls the coloring of the blobs. Wind directions within that value (plus or minus) will be shown in green. Wind directions within twice that value will be shown in yellow, and wind directions beyond twice that value will be shown in red. The current default value is 15 degrees, so wind directions from -15 to 15 degrees (relative to the launch direction) will be green. Similarly, wind directions from -30 to 30 degrees (again relative to launch) will be shown in yellow. And wind directions beyond that range will be shown as red. You can change that value to be more or less conservative.
The second row of controls starts with the
"Days" field. That selects how many days will be shown starting from the current time. The default is "All" which will typically show the 7 days given by the forecast. But 7 days on a small screen can be a bit cramped, so you can get a better view by selecting fewer days. Alternatively, the next two fields (
"Window") change the width and height of the plot itself. You can adjust those values to better fit your screen and see more detail in the plots. The
"Apply" button will force the current values to be used (similar to pressing the "Enter" key). The last two controls on the second row allow you to select what is shown below the controls. The options are
"Help Panel",
"Data Panel", and
"None". The
"Help Panel" will describe the program and controls (similar to this post). The
"Data Panel" will show the raw data used for the plot. The top box in the
Data Panel shows the raw XML data that was sent by the National Weather Service for that location. The second box shows the forecast wind direction (in degrees). And the third box in the
"Data Panel", shows the forecast wind speed (in mph). You can copy and paste from any of those boxes to save or use in other applications.
So ... after that long explanation, it looks like Dockweiler will be pretty good for flying most of the day tomorrow. It will be especially good between noon and 6pm. Note that the Blob Plot doesn't show rain or temperature or other non-wind weather data. To view those items, use the
"Weather" button in Blob Plot to bring up the
National Weather Service page. Use that page to check the appropriate boxes (like "Rain" or "Precipitation Potential") and click "Submit" to see their forecast. Here's what that looks like for tomorrow:
- Dockweiler_Forecast_Graph_2026-02-17.png (83.85 KiB) Viewed 4935 times
Unfortunately, tomorrow is a Wednesday. Otherwise it might be a fun day for the Alpha 210 or my Falcon 195.
by JoeF » Fri Dec 26, 2025 11:05 pm 
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