Tuesday, September 9, 2008

9 September 2008

I have been wanting to validate the NOAA long range (seven-day) temperature and precipitation forecasts and this is one of my attempts to do that.
 ThuFriSatSunMon 
Day
High
Night
Low
Day
High
Night
Low
Day
High
Night
Low
Day
High
Night
Low
Day
High
Night
Low
Thu
4Sep08
90°72°88°62°75°65°82°68°78°65°Temp
----20%70%70%70%60%------PoP
Fri
5Sep08
  85°62°78°65°82°68°82°62°Temp
  --70%80%80%20%------PoP
Sat
6Sep08
    78°68°85°62°82°68°Temp
    90%90%20%----30%PoP
Sun
6Sep08
      82°62°82°65°Temp
      --------PoP
Mon
7Sep08
        82°68°Temp
        ----PoP
Observed90°70°86°72°81°70°80°67°81°64°Temp
0.00"0.28"3.26"0.00"0.00"Precip
I am not sure the predicted nighttime lows relate to the observed low for the dates shown. The predictions are for the overnight low which assumedly would occur between sunset and sunrise on the day stated and the next day while the daily low usually occurs about an hour after sunrise unless a cold front moves through during the day.

I based this chart on one I previously did that worked so this one should also. But after three weeks playing with it I still can't get it to display the time properly along the X axis. The time notations are supposed to denote 6 hours so should start at 12:00 am, then go to 6:00 am, 12:00 pm, 6:00 pm, 12:00 am . . . Excel can't manage that and no matter what format I tell it to use to display that axis all of the times are the same. I think I added a few new parameters to this iteration and suspect that I am asking Excel to do more than it is able to do.