Instructions for Entering the Data into the Excel Spreadsheet:

1.    Download the Excel Interpolations Spreadsheet to your hard drive or disk.

2.    Open the Excel file, which should look like this:

(click on the thumbnail for a full-screen image)

3.    Enter in the map date (mm/dd/yy) and time (military) for the two maps used in your case study.

4.    Enter the x and y coordinates for the latitudes and longitudes that you calibrated in Photoshop.

5.    Enter the latitude and longitude and maximum wind speed from the flight recorder data file for the flight in your case study.  (You may enter in additional points if you wish to determine the x-y coordinates for points along the flightpath of the airplane.)

6.    Use the interpolated x-y coordinates calculated for your plane's latitude and longitude to go back to the maps and find the 'point' and 'peak'.  The 'point' is the value of the jet stream velocity estimated from the map at the point where the aircraft recorded the highest wind speed.  The 'peak' is the maximum value of the jet stream velocity along the flight path of the aircraft as estimated from the map .  Enter the 'point' and 'peak' velocities in your spreadsheet.  (For the second case study, no interpolation is necessary since the aircraft recorded its maximum wind velocity within 2 minutes of the map projection.  Just enter an arbitrary 2nd map time 12 hours later, and copy the coordinate data from the first map into the second map cells.)

7.    Enter the time that the aircraft recorded the maximum wind speed in the appropriate cell.

8.    The percent error calculation indicates the difference between the computer model depiction of the jet stream velocity and that actually recorded by the aircraft.  Negative percent errors indicate the model underestimated the jet stream velocity; positive percent errors indicate the model overestimated the jet stream velocity.