Luke <rlw> writes:

When you fly in Alpine you are actually flying on the south west side of the Snake River Range, specifically just west of Ferry Peak (the big mountain Tiki tows you over). If you were flying on the west side of the Teton Range, you would be flying from Victor, Driggs or Tetonia, in Idaho. Not much going on over there in the way of launching, but Bart has climbed out from a 400 foot training hill in Tetonia, then over the Tetons and back to his house in Wilson.

In addition to the soaring forecasts that you mentioned, I have found these good local resources for weather:

NOAA Area Forecast Discussion. Great product that talks about the local forecast in detail and will give you a good idea on general flying conditions. http://www.crh.noaa.gov/product.php?site=RIW&product=AFD&issuedby=RIW&glossary=1

Usairnet website’s aviation forecast, which is simply a graphical representation of the National Weather Service’s forecast. Very basic, I use it mainly for forecasted surface winds and temps, and to ‘build the big picture’ for the day. http://www.usairnet.com/cgi-in/launch/code.cgi?sta=KJAC&state=WY&Submit=Get+Forecast

Local Meteorologist Jim Woodmencey’s forecast on Mountain Weather. This is the go-to forecast for ski conditions and snow fall in the winter, but also has some useful information for flying including a local temps and winds forecast for the mountains (10,000 feet), which will be much more accurate than interpolated winds aloft forecasts especially when you are close to terrain. Also from here there are very convenient links to current maps like surface, radar, satellite, etc. http://www.mountainweather.com

Jackson Hole Paragliding has a nice weather page that collects information from many sources, including streaming wind and temp data from mountain top weather reporting stations. Click on the name of the station and you can see the report for every 15 minutes over the last couple of days. http://jhparagliding.com/Weather-to-Fly/

If you have an iPhone check out Wind Alert, great app that shows a graphic wind representation from several local weather stations.

Like you were saying, I think the flying here is more technical than most people give it credit for. It looks really good for the next few days.