@vsinceac Me again, with a few more questions, still concerning the GFS model.

In your message, you said "runtime today at 06hUTC, validity for 07hUTC, 515.1 GB, all params/levels"
I believe you meant 515.1 MB, right?
515MB x 209 validities = 110GB for a full run.

Do you know of a website where I can follow live the release of the different validities by the NOAA?
I know about this one (https://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/prodstat/index.html#TARGET).
But is there a way to follow the release progress at the file level?

One last question:
Is there a difference in accuracy between the 4 daily updates?
I read in an old article (from 2012) that the 00z and the 12z were better than the other two.
I was surprised to read that and maybe it was the case back then but do you know if that is still the case?

Thanks

@vsinceac Thanks a lot for such a thorough reply. Slowly, thanks to people like you, I understand more and more about the details of these weather updates.

FYI, my interest in the "precise" timing of Windy is because I play an e-sailing game (called Virtual Regatta) and it uses real world weather data (GFS model, only wind speed and direction).
So, for example, when the 00z file is released (@3h40 UTC), the game's weather starts to update (takes around 2h) and often, it is interesting to look at Windy but I wanted to know if what Windy shows is still the old (18z) data or already the new one (00z) and when/how it goes from one to the other.

Again, thanks for your reply.

@vsinceac Thanks a lot for your reply. When you say "it may take a while ..." do you have a rough estimate of how long that is ? Are we talking something like 1h or much less ?

Also, I'm curious about the file size that you mentioned, 500MB : do you know how big is the grib2 file, covering the whole 16day forecast ?

@Korina Thanks for this post.
I'm interested in the GFS model in particular.
When a new grib file is released by the NOAA, how long does it take Windy to show it ? Is it pretty much instantaneous (a few minutes) or does it take longer ?