Getting model orography for a particular place?

novakog

If I understand correctly, both the Cloud Base and Cloud Tops layers are height above model orography, which is sort of like a low-resolution averaged altitude. Is it possible to look up what is the model orography for a point on the map, relative to AMSL?

I do a decent amount of hiking in mountainous areas, and what I'd like to be able to guess is whether a hike will be within the clouds (and have almost zero visibility), or possibly get above the clouds (although I know the Cloud Tops layer doesn't necessarily correspond to visibility). For any hike I can easily find the AMSL of the highest point, and I want to convert that into the height above model orography, to see where the top point is relative to the Cloud Base and Cloud Tops.

idefix37

@novakog
Here is the way to know the altitude of the model orography for a place

https://community.windy.com/topic/7929/model-altitude

Unfortunately this is only available for ECMWF model.
An easier way to get this information should be nice, for all models.

novakog

That's perfect, thank you so much!