The community's reference model; run-to-run continuity of "EC" is the core currency of the threads.
A · own-rendered
Cred A model-deterministic we render it Phase 1 live
Two explicitly separate point products are live. The 0.25° feed supplies the pressure-level profile used for snow-level and resort-elevation phase analysis. Native deterministic IFS supplies an approximately 9 km Australian surface precipitation and snowfall-water-equivalent reference. The native surface track is unphased and never substituted for, or silently merged into, the 0.25° profile. Community views IFS mostly through third-party chart sites; we render directly from Open-Meteo point data and ECMWF open GRIB fields.
Second reference model; the over-eager one, used to cross-check EC.
A · own-rendered
Cred A model-deterministic we render it Phase 1 live
Fully open via NOMADS and AWS Open Data. No auth, no rate paywall.
ski.com.au Predictions threads
25 Where the analysis this site serves actually happens — the primary audience and the reason the hub exists.
C · link-out card
Cred C forum link-out only Phase 1 planned
Persistent "discuss this on the forum" link in the header. This is a companion to the forum, not a replacement.
BoM MSLP analysis & prognosis charts
16 The official synoptic chart the community screenshots inside ~4 days.
C · link-out card
Cred A agency link-out only
embed refused
retrievable · not cleared Phase 2 planned
BoM material is CC-BY but the site ToS restricts automated retrieval — audit required (P0-6).
Dominant for short-range "what will it look like at the resort" checks across EC/GFS/ICON/AROME layers.
B · embedded
Cred B visualiser embedded Phase 2 live
Official embed widget exists — the one third-party viewer we can legitimately embed. Lazy-load it (heavy iframe).
ECMWF AIFS the EC robot
15 Early-signal tiebreaker at long lead — "the EC robot is also beginning to show some interest".
A · own-rendered
Cred B model-ai we render it Phase 1 live
Available in Open-Meteo as a deterministic model and as a separate 51-member AIFS 0.25° ensemble. Ensemble point values retain native-grid semantics, remain separate from IFS ENS and GEFS, and are not described as snowfall at a resort elevation or at 1500 m.
Free multi-model point API (ECMWF IFS/AIFS, GFS/GEFS, ACCESS-G, ICON) — the data backbone for every own-rendered panel.
A · own-rendered
Cred B data-api we render it Phase 1 live
MANDATORY ATTRIBUTION: "Weather data by Open-Meteo.com", linked, on every panel carrying its data — not footer-only. CONSTRAINT: free tier is CC BY 4.0 non-commercial, ~10k calls/day; project is committed to staying non-commercial. Migration path if that changes is Open-Meteo's paid endpoint (customer-api.open-meteo.com + API key, same API shape) — NOT raw model ingestion. All calls sit behind the WeatherProvider interface (ADR 0001 §7).
Phil Hart snow forecasts
15 Community-built resort snow-level/precip dashboard on Open-Meteo with transparent thickness-based methodology.
C · link-out card
Cred C community-tool link-out only Phase 1 live
PRIOR ART, not a competitor. Our Phase 1 is the same idea done wider. Credit him explicitly on the snow-level panel and in /credits. Do not scrape.
BoM ACCESS-G / ACCESS-C ACCESS
12 The local model; leaned on hard inside 48–72 h for snow-level and precip detail, largely ignored at range.
A · own-rendered
Cred A model-deterministic we render it
embed refused
Phase 1 in-progress
Direct gridded ACCESS-G needs NCI registered access. Open-Meteo exposes ACCESS-G point forecasts — use that for Tier A meteograms; skip raw NCI.
ECMWF ENS / EPS EPS · ensembles
12 The probabilistic backbone; posters police the norm that beyond ~5 days you read spread, not runs.
A · own-rendered
Cred A model-ensemble we render it Phase 3 live
Resort-point spread and independent liquid-equivalent precipitation probability are live via Open-Meteo's global ECMWF IFS 0.25° ensemble. Native approximately 9 km ensemble delivery listed for Europe is a geographic forecast domain, not an account or citizenship entitlement, and does not cover Australian resort points. Domain anomaly/map context remains P3-5; UI shows separate spread and probability, never a single member.
Fully open ensemble system — our best shot at own-rendered spread/probability panels.
A · own-rendered
Cred A model-ensemble we render it Phase 3 live
Open-Meteo exposes GEFS members at points — enough for resort-level probability-of-snow plumes without touching GRIB.
Third-opinion cross-check, usually consulted via Windy.
A · own-rendered
Cred A model-deterministic we render it Phase 1 live
Free ride — already in the Open-Meteo multi-model call.
The Snowstack (Tyson Millar)
8 Narrative synthesis of the model picture; well received in-thread.
C · link-out card
Cred C commentary link-out only Phase 4 planned
Substack exposes a public RSS feed — headline + date + link only, never full text.
Levi Cowan's free site — source of most GFS/EPS/AIFS Australia-domain panels posted in-thread.
C · link-out card
Cred B chart-platform link-out only
embed refused
Phase 1 live
Highest-frequency chart source in the threads (20+ uploads). Ships as a deep-linked Tier C card until the audit says otherwise — never hotlink the .gif files.
Snow-level and MSLP+precip loops plus Kosciuszko atmosphere/sounding panels, built on EC/AIFS/GFS open data.
C · link-out card
Cred B chart-platform link-out only
embed refused
Phase 2 planned
Free. Its snow-level product is a second cross-check for our own panel.
Fifth-opinion global deterministic centre, carried as a comparison track rather than on the primary panel.
A · own-rendered
Cred A model-deterministic we render it
ToS unchecked
Phase 1 live
Free ride — added to the existing Open-Meteo multi-model call. Rendered only as a comparison track. The headline licence stays "unverified" until JMA's own GSM terms have been read.
NOAA AI-GFS (experimental) AIGFS · AI-GFS
5 NOAA's experimental AI global model, retrieved direct from NOMADS as GRIB2 and own-rendered rather than borrowed as someone else's chart.
A · own-rendered
Cred B model-ai we render it
not yet cleared
retrievable · not cleared Phase 5 in-progress
Reclassified from "not worth own-rendering". That verdict was about the Tropical Tidbits chart route and was correct for it; the direct NOMADS GRIB2 route is a different proposition — public directory, .idx sidecars, byte-range retrieval, our own rendering, no third party's terms involved. A retrieval adapter exists at scripts/aigfs/ (index parsing, byte-range selection, ecCodes decode, unit tests). It is NOT wired into any page: whether AI-GFS earns panel space is a separate decision, and the republication licence is unaudited, so ingestion stays behind AIGFS_INGEST and nothing renders.
UKMO Global (Met Office) UKMO · UKMET
5 Fourth-opinion global deterministic centre, carried as a comparison track rather than on the primary panel.
A · own-rendered
Cred A model-deterministic we render it
ToS unchecked
Phase 1 live
Free ride — added to the existing Open-Meteo multi-model call, so it costs no extra request. Rendered only as a comparison track; it is not one of the four models the primary precipitation split is built from. The headline licence stays "unverified" until someone reads the Met Office's own terms for the global deterministic 10 km product.
Australian multi-model aggregator graphing EC/GFS/ACCESS side by side per location; linked from the KB sticky.
C · link-out card
Cred B point-forecast link-out only
embed refused
Phase 1 live
Closest existing analogue to our Phase 1 comparison view. Worth a card and worth studying.
Source of the recurring ECMWF full-res forecast loops and 9-km EC snowfall panels.
C · link-out card
Cred B chart-platform link-out only
embed refused
Phase 1 live
Some products now behind Pivotal Plus. Card must not imply free access to paywalled loops.
Meteologix / Kachelmannwetter
3 The "modez" (ECMWF) Australian panels, sub-seasonal anomaly charts and rapid-update animations.
C · link-out card
Cred B chart-platform link-out only
not yet cleared
Phase 1 live
Meteologix AU snowline & 0 °C isotherm charts
3 The KB sticky's canonical snow-level links — EC snowline and GFS 0 °C isotherm height.
C · link-out card
Cred B chart-platform link-out only
not yet cleared
Phase 1 live
DUAL ROLE: also the ground-truth cross-check for our own snow-level panel. QA ticket P1-7 sanity-checks our thickness-derived snow level against this product for the same run.
Mountainwatch / "the Grasshopper"
2 Expert forecaster commentary; season outlooks and weekly forecasts read by the same audience.
C · link-out card
Cred B commentary link-out only Phase 4 planned
BoM MetEye + ADFD gridded forecasts
0 Official gridded AU forecast layer (7-day, includes snow) — the authoritative comparison for our own snow-level panel.
C · link-out card
Cred A agency link-out only
embed refused
not cleared Phase 2 planned
MetEye is a heavy JS app — link-out card. ADFD gridded access is registered-only.
ECCC GEPS GEPS · Canadian ensemble
0 A fourth independent ensemble system, alongside ECMWF IFS ENS/AIFS ENS and GEFS — coarser grid, but a genuinely separate model family.
A · own-rendered
Cred A model-ensemble we render it Phase 3 live
0.5° (~50 km) grid — the coarsest product rendered on either ensemble page, with adjacent resorts routinely sharing one grid cell. 21 members (control + 20). Verified live 2026-08-02: temperature_2m, precipitation, snowfall and snowfall_water_equivalent all present and non-null to hour 384 at Perisher coordinates. Deterministic GEM (gem_global) is out of scope — its storage domain has not initialised since 2026-05-26 and is not rendered anywhere.
Free official EC/AIFS/ENS charts incl. meteograms and anomaly products — the primary-source alternative to third-party chart sites.
B · embedded
Cred A chart-platform embedded Phase 1 in-progress
Highest-value Tier B source: authoritative, CC-BY, replaces the ToS-murky Pivotal/Meteologix panels for synoptic context. Prefer over all of them.
ECMWF Open Data (IFS/AIFS 0.25° GRIB)
0 Raw fields for own-rendered MSLP/precip/thickness maps over an Australian domain.
A · own-rendered
Cred A data-api we render it Phase 3 planned
GRIB decoding in a Worker is impractical — use the standalone scheduled Python/ecCodes producer, emitting a canonical-grid JSON artifact for the static site.
meteoblue multi-model meteograms
0 Ensemble-at-a-glance widget; useful benchmark for our own multi-model meteogram.
C · link-out card
Cred B point-forecast link-out only Phase 5 backlog
Cleared for embedding ONLY via meteoblue Plug&Play widgets with a visible METEOBLUE reference close to the data. Scraping/framing the plain page is not covered.
The trans-Tasman flank of the same synoptic systems.
D · reference shelf
Cred A agency reference link Phase 5 backlog
NOAA NOMADS / AWS Open Data
0 Raw GFS/GEFS GRIB with byte-range subsetting for the Australian domain.
A · own-rendered
Cred A data-api we render it Phase 3 planned
Use the `.idx` byte-range filter — retrieve only the selected full-grid message ranges, then interpolate the Australian domain to the canonical output grid.
snow-forecast.com / mountain-forecast.com
0 Resort-level multi-elevation forecasts; widely used outside the forum.
C · link-out card
Cred C point-forecast link-out only Phase 5 backlog
Cleared for embedding ONLY via their free official widget (snow-forecast.com/pages/configure_feed1) with attribution. Framing the raw resort page is explicitly banned — swap `url` to the widget endpoint before any Phase 5 embed.
Alternative multi-model visualiser with a good snow-depth layer.
C · link-out card
Cred B visualiser link-out only Phase 5 backlog
Cleared for embedding ONLY via embed.ventusky.com with an active link back to ventusky.com. No API exists.