EISPIRATEN

For a long time, I had a system that worked pretty well for me when I wanted to see what the weather would be like in the mountains. I would bookmark an NOAA URL like this:

https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.p ... 3991230113

This example does still work -- it shows a green rectangle that includes the summit of Mt Wilson, and it gives a forecast that seems reasonable for that area. E.g., for today it says the high will be 75 degrees, which seems plausible when the afternoon temp here in Fullerton is 92.

But what seems to have happened over the last few years is that they've eliminated more and more of that functionality, so that now if I go to one of these bookmarked URLs, it almost always redirects me to a zone forecast. Well, that's fine when the zone is something like northern Orange County, but for the mountains it's pretty useless. For example, here's the zone map and forecast that includes San Jacinto Peak:

https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.p ... 056&zflg=1

I used to be able to bookmark a lat-lon that would tell me conditions in Idyllwild or at the summit of San J, but now it just gives me this zone. As you can see if you click through, it would be kind of absurd to talk about "the" weather for this zone, which comes down in elevation almost as low as Banning and extends up to the summit of San J. That's a 7000 foot range of elevation and probably a 40-degree range of temperature.

Here are a couple of alternatives that I know of, although neither is super great.

There is a network of local weather stations called MADIS. You can use this map to find the code-name of a station that's as close as possible to the peak you're interested in: https://madis-data.ncep.noaa.gov/MadisSurface/ . So in my example of the San Jacintos, I find these stations:

top of the tram -- https://www.weather.gov/wrh/timeseries?site=MSJC1
Idyllwild -- https://www.weather.gov/wrh/timeseries?site=178SE

So this is fairly useful, but it's not a forecast. It just shows you a graph of the temperature over the last few days.

There is a web site called mountain-forecast.com. For example, here is their page for San J:

https://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks ... casts/3293

It does seem to show reasonable variation with elevation, but the day-night variation totally fails a sanity check, which decreases my confidence in whoever runs the site. They always predict almost exactly the same temperature for day and night, whereas from the MADIS graph at the tram I can see that there is usually a day-night difference of about 15 degrees.

So I guess from this combination of sources I can do something like the following. Say I'm planning to go to the summit of San J tomorrow.

(1) I look at the NOAA zone forecast, and that tells me there will be light winds, no rain, partly cloudy in the afternoon. It gives me a temperature, which is useless.

(2) I look at the MADIS site for the tram, and I see that the high today at about 8000' was 68 degrees.

(3) I look at mountain-forecast, and it tells me that the temperature forecast for tomorrow is about the same as today. I click on the tabs to see forecasts at 8200', which is about the elevation of the tram, and at the elevation of the summit. It gives a temperature forecast, which is useless (same for day and night), but it predicts about a 10 degree temperature difference between the tram and the summit. So I conclude that it will probably be about 58 degrees at the summit.

I guess this sort of works, but it's a lot less convenient than what I used to be able to do. One thing I used to be able to do, and can't do anymore, is to email a URL to a friend so they can see a quick summary of what the forecast will be tomorrow if we go for a hike or go rock climbing together.

Does anyone have any better knowledge or methods?

I've had decent success simply typing a major peak (like San Gorgonio Mountain or Mount Wilson) into Google search with the word "weather." It draws data from weather.com. Of course I don't have much need for super detailed weather forecasts. As long as it's in the ballpark, I can prepare for freezing or not freezing, raining or not, snowing or not, etc.

Sean wrote: ↑I've had decent success simply typing a major peak (like San Gorgonio Mountain or Mount Wilson) into Google search with the word "weather." It draws data from weather.com.

When I do that search, I get the mountain-forecast.com and NOAA pages.

Of course I don't have much need for super detailed weather forecasts. As long as it's in the ballpark, I can prepare for freezing or not freezing, raining or not, snowing or not, etc.

Personally, I want a more specific forecast because I'm going trail running. If I was hiking with a pack, I could always just throw more layers in the pack.

bcrowell wrote: ↑ When I do that search, I get the mountain-forecast.com and NOAA pages.

For me the top, embedded result with preview is from weather.com. The next results are just links. Looks like this in desktop view...

Personally, I want a more specific forecast because I'm going trail running. If I was hiking with a pack, I could always just throw more layers in the pack.

If you click on a day in the 10-day forecast, you can get more detail for temperature, precipitation and wind by the hour.



Of course this won't work for minor, unlisted peaks and areas.

I see. Thanks for explaining. But the weather.com forecast doesn't seem usable for this purpose. They're forecasting a high of 63 for tomorrow, which is much too high to be for the summit. It's probably an average for some geographical zone that includes the mountain. However, they don't say what the geographical zone is. So it seems like they have all the disadvantages of the new zone-based NOAA forecast, plus the additional disadvantage of not telling you what the zone is. (It's also annoying that there doesn't seem to be any way to get a URL that can be bookmarked. The weather.com URL at the bottom of their graphic has some lat-lon in it. When I clicked on it, it took a couple of minutes for the page to load, and then it gave me a forecast for the Morongo Valley.)

Hi Ben. I usually use the NWS pages (what you're bookmarking), and it seems like it works OK? Do you have an example of a MapClick URL redirecting to a too-large-to-be-useful zone? The link you have posted here is already a zone link.

I think the NWS site is working: just clicking on the map still does the right thing for me. For instance:

Idyllwild (Humber Park). It says Point Forecast: 2 Miles NE Idyllwild CA 33.76°N 116.7°W (Elev. 5991 ft)

San Jacinto Peak. It says Point Forecast: 5 Miles NE Pine Cove CA 33.81°N 116.68°W (Elev. 10541 ft)

You see some sort of redirect to a zone?

Hi Dima -- Thanks, that's really weird. Over the last year or so, I've seen more and more of my bookmarked lat-lon URLs stop working. They've been redirecting to zone forecasts. What prompted me to post a few days ago was that one that I had been using for San Gorgonio started to redirect like that. The one for where I live, in Fullerton, is another example that for a long time had been redirecting to a forecast for a larger zone, although that wasn't a problem. But as of today, as you point out, everything seems to be back to its old behavior from ca. 2021, which is that the lat-lon URLs work properly again.

Totally weird. My guess is that whoever maintains the NOAA web site has been changing their mind about how it should behave. Maybe other people like me complained or something. Hopefully they keep it like this with the older behavior.

It seems like now it only gives you the zone if you explicitly ask for it using a URL of this form: https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.p ... 055&zflg=1

I compared the NWS point forecast with weather.com on Google for San Gorgonio. They have similar guesses, except for tonight's low, which is a difference between freezing and not freezing. If I were to plan according to NWS, and they're very wrong, I might freeze to death. If I plan according to Google/weather.com, I'm good but maybe carry one too many layers.

Sean wrote: ↑I compared the NWS point forecast with weather.com on Google for San Gorgonio. They have similar guesses, except for tonight's low, which is a difference between freezing and not freezing. If I were to plan according to NWS, and they're very wrong, I might freeze to death. If I plan according to Google/weather.com, I'm good but maybe carry one too many layers.

Yeah, I'm conscious of the fact that when I go for one of these trail runs, I'm pretty vulnerable. I try to weight the odds as much in my favor as possible, partly by knowing the route really well and by getting a nice early start. Those things make it pretty unlikely that I'll spend the night on the mountain. But I'm usually just wearing shorts and a long-sleeved nylon shirt, and those are pretty much the only resources I've got other than a fanny pack, a water bottle, and a little food. A pretty common experience is that for half an hour or so while I'm popping up to a summit, I get really cold. My fingers get numb, and my forearms get weak. But the large muscles in my legs are all warmed up, so there's not really any doubt about my ability to get back down off the peak. What I'm trying to gauge with these forecasts is whether I need to also tie a sweater around my waist, or whether it's just not even a good idea to do that activity in that style on that particular day. Right now it's a question of how much longer I can push the season for this activity this year, on San Gorgonio. Sometimes in the winter I do Wilson, which is very scenic and beautiful, but I dislike the crowded conditions on the way back down.

bcrowell wrote: ↑ A pretty common experience is that for half an hour or so while I'm popping up to a summit, I get really cold. My fingers get numb, and my forearms get weak. But the large muscles in my legs are all warmed up, so there's not really any doubt about my ability to get back down off the peak. What I'm trying to gauge with these forecasts is whether I need to also tie a sweater around my waist, or whether it's just not even a good idea to do that activity in that style on that particular day.

Have you considered a lightweight, compact rain jacket or poncho for summit pushes? They only weigh a few ounces and can be folded into a small bag the size of your palm. You might be able to stuff it into your fanny pack or tie it to your strap. And being a hard shell layer, it should retain more body heat than a sweater.

You're definitely doing high risk trail running, though. When I could run, I went up to Lowe in freezing weather underdressed but knew I could shelter a bit at Inspiration Point. I should have brought a jacket.