Micromet is a DOS program created by the meteorological faculty of the University of Cologne. It is used in conjunction with Soundings (RAOBS) which can be obtained from various sources, which will be listed in the appendix and local temperatures and dew points which can be obtained locally or from METARS. With this information Micromet is able to compute a Convection (thermal) prognosis graphically and in text format as well as various other conditions of the atmosphere.
Find the link to download "Micromet" and a new "manager.exe" on the weather page.
After downloading the zip-archive and installing the contents to e.g. "c:\micromet", proceed as follows: Bring up your Micromet folder - open EXE folder and rename "manager.exe" to "manager1.exe". Then insert the downloaded new "manager.exe" into "c:\micromet\exe\manager.exe"
Also from the same website download a program named "Sondat" (latest version) which was developed to assist with the compilation and loading of sounding data into Micromet.
After the download and update the program has been completed and is in "c:\micromet", open this folder. Then edit the properties of the following 5 files with the right mouse button one after the other:
mm.cfg, micromet.hlp, ablauf.hlp, btxmicro.hlp, eingabe.hlp, manager.hlp
Open "properties" on each and ensure that the attribute "read only" is not marked (the box must be empty).
Next make a list of stations within your flying area for which you wish to obtain a forecast. One of them should be your airfield for which you can obtain an early morning temperature and dew point. Best look for airfields in your area for which Metars (hourly actuals) are available (see chapter "Data Sources" below).
To create such a station list proceed as follows:
Open SONDAT "Datei", "Neu" then "Zielgebiete" then "Datensatz", "Neu". In subwindow "Zielgebiet bearbeiten" fill in Station name, Hoehe (height) in meters, Laenge (longitude) for long.west start with minus sign (e.g. -80.30), Breite (latitude), Aktivitäet 1.0 is set figure for thermal activity.
After all stations are entered, leave Sondat open on the screen. Open Micromet folder, then rename the file "Zieldat.dat" to "Zieldat1.dat". Close the Micromet folder.
Then continue with Sondat to load the Stations into Micromet as follows:
"Datei", "Speichern unter". In Subwindow "Save as" open "C:" disk, then "Micromet" File Name: "c:\micromet\zieldat.dat" "Alle Dateien" and "Enter". Micromet is now ready to produce a Convection Forecast for the area you selected.
In the early morning of your forecast day, obtain for the stations you selected the before sunrise temperature and dewpoint temperature (from Metars). Write these numbers down, for later use.
Obtain soundings as follows: From the Synoptic Surface weather chart, 850 mb and 500 mb chart determine the air flow pattern (see below for websites for charts). Then open the University of Wyoming website (This website provides soundings from all parts of the world).
Select your "Region" of the world, select the right data format "Plot: Text List" Year/month from day/00Z to day/00Z, select, at least 10 stations (minimum) from the map shown UP WIND of your flying area and after the sounding data for each appears "File" click "Save Page as" and "Save in: Download - Text file" under "File name: Station ident.-DD/MM/YY.wue" (e.g "dtx-200903.wue"). File all selected soundings this way.
NOTE: This can also be done as mass download with Cygwin (Unix) which saves quite a bit of time. Instruction for this see below.
Then open SONDAT (Datei - Neu - Radiosondierungen) in Subwindow click "Importieren". In your download folder - Alle Dateien find "dtx-200903.wue" and all others soundings - highlight all - Open. This moves all Sounding data into Sondat, - highlight all (select the complete list) - open "Datensatz" (toolbar) and click "Üeberzählige Messpunkte löeschen". Now the red ballons on the left side will disapear. Now leave Sondat with sounding list on screen, and open "Micromet". Click "micro.exe" this opens Micromet and at the same time creates a new folder for this day (e.g "200903" = 20.Sep.2003). Then reduce Micromet to the Taskbar (iconize) and continue with Sondat. Save the sounding data with menu "Datei/Speichern unter" in the new subdirectory of your Micromet folder with following file name: "c:\micromet\200903\tempdat1.dat"
Now put Micromet back onto full screen from taskbar. As MICROMET is a DOS program you now have to work with keyboard commands.
Arrow keys - up/down and sideways, Esc key - one window back and close program with requested command, Space bar - move down lists and activate, Enter - enters highlighted area on screen. Start the processing by highlighting submenu "Manager" and hit Enter. Then a list of the sounding data stations entered will appear. With the space bar highlight each sounding you want to use for forecast and Enter.
Next subwindow to select time select e.g UTC and enter. Next "Zielgebiet" subwindow will appear with the space bar select each station you want to use and enter.
Individual Stations will appear requesting its early morning data:
Temperatur (temperature) - Enter
Taupunkt (dew point temperature or rel. humidity) - Enter
Inversion Hoehe (height) - Enter
For Inversion Hoehe (height) enter 300 m for light or no wind nights, 500 m for windy nights. Then enter "OK" or "korrigieren" (correct) if some figure needs changing. Each station in turn will have to be completed like above.
Next the CB simulation window will appear select the time for which you want this simulation and Enter. Then it will jump to submenu "Autom. Start" - Enter. When this has done its calculations you can view the results.
Vertikal Profile - gives Graphic Tephigram or list of sounding data for station selected.
Vertical Schnitt - Horizontal Schnitte - Trajektorien will only work for European Stations because only a european map is available.
The submenu "Konvektion Prognose" highlight and "Open" gives the forecasts for the Stations that you entered for you area. Select on subwindow "Tabelle" or "Graphik" enter and then select "station" and enter. And view the Results.
All above appears to be a lot of work but when you have done the original set up for your area and have all the webpages, where you can obtain the data required, in your computer, the time required to make a Micromet forecast should not take more than 20 minutes.
This software package will help you for mass download of sounding data.
Go to the Cygwin website and download Standard Package - pick download site a server near you - then chose "install from internet". In addition to the standard setup also install the two packages "lynx" and "wget". This can be done by marking the "skip" symbols.
When the installation is complete a new Icon appears on the desktop. When you klick on this a text window will appear. This window behaves like Unix/Linux, you have to watch entering small and kapital letters as shown below. Write into this window "echo $HOME" and enter, write down what you get as answer (e.g. "c:\cygwin\home\username\"). Then make a directory for your download script by typing in "mkdir bin". Then leave the text window by typing "exit" and pressing Enter.
Now download the shell script gettemps (UNI-Wyoming) and/or getfsltemps (NOAA) that will do the download work for you. Save this file(s) to the new made directory (e.g. "c:\cygwin\home\username\bin"). Next step download the example file stationen.list which lists the station-IDs of the needed soundings. Save this file also to the above mentioned directory. This example file covers only the needs of german users, but you can edit it with any text editor you like (e.g. notepad) and change the identification numbers for your requirements. Obtain the identification numbers of sounding stations from University of Wyoming website.
Now we have to check through the system that everything is there. Double klick the Cygwin Icon then enter in text window: "which wget". Answer should be "/usr/bin/wget". Then enter "which lynx". Answer should be "/usr/bin/lynx". Then enter "cd bin" and then enter "ls". Answer should be "gettemps stationen.list".
Next step is to check if the download works. First connect your computer to the internet. Open the Cygwin-Window, type in "cd bin" and then start the download by entering "./gettemps". The station-IDs will appear on the screen as soon they are downloaded. When this has finished (after 1 - 2 minutes), disconnect your computer from the internet. You will find the downloaded sounding files in directory "c:\cygwin\home\username\download\temps\". You then load these data as described above via "Sondat" into Micromet.
Last and final step is to make download more comfortable. Create a new shortcut on your desktop and fill in the property dialog as shown in the image on the right side. Fill the editlines for "Target" and "Start in" properly; substitute the string "username" by your login name. Assign a nice icon and close this dialog. After connecting to internet you can start now a download process by double clicking the shortcut icon.
http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html
World Soundings Stations by continent (Sondat filtered for Micromet).
http://raob.fsl.noaa.gov/
Soundings stations North America only (Sondat filtered for Micromet).
http://www.dispatcher.org/brief/adfbrief.html
World Metars/charts and many other weather info.
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/bracka.html
Synoptic Chart Europe
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsbeomt.html
Europe Charts Metars etc.
http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/taf.shtml
World wide Tafs/actual temps and dew points, charts.
For questions on this english Micromet instruction please contact: frpenn@compuserve.com
URL: http://wie-im-flug.net/wetter/installation.html
(c) 2004 Dr. Guido Scholz, D-84508 Burgkirchen (info@wie-im-flug.net)
(c) 2004 Frank Pennauer (frpenn@compuserve.com)
Last Update: 02.04.2013
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