What source of weather data Windy use?

[ivo]

Windy provides the option to choose from several different weather models. Below is a brief overview of all models which you can find on Windy.

Global models:

• ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) is sometimes informally known in the USA as the "European model". More info available at www.ecmwf.com
  • Resolution is 0.1° in lat/lon (~9 km).
  • The forecast output is produced every three hours for first 144 hours, six hourly through day 10.
• GFS (Global Forecast System) - the model is operated by the United States' National Weather Service (NWS)
  • Resolution is ~22 km.
  • The forecast output is produced every hour for the first 120 hours, three hourly through day 10.
• ICON Global (Global Forecast System) - the model is operated by the United States' National Weather Service (NWS)
  • Resolution is ~13 km.
  • The forecast output is produced every hour for the first 120 hours, three hourly through day 10.

Local models:

Europe

• NEMS - This model is produced by Meteoblue.com, Swiss weather geniuses.
  • Resolution is ~4 km, available only for Europe.
• ICON-EU - High resolution model developed and operated by German DWD. One of the most modern forecast models delivering very good results in Europe.
  • Resolution is ~7 km, available only for Europe.
• ICON-D2
  • Resolution is 2.2km available in a western part of Europe.
• AROME
  • Resolution is 0.01° (1.25km) available in a western part of Europe including France, Germany and the Alps.
• AROME
  • Resolution is 0.01° (1.25km) available in a western part of Europe including France, Germany and the Alps.

USA

• NAM CONUS
  • Resolution is ~5 km, available only for continental US.
• NAM Alaska
  • Resolution is ~6 km, available only for Alaska.
• NAM Hawaii
  • Resolution is ~3 km, available only for Hawaii.
• HRRR
  • Resolution is ~3 km, available only for continental US.

Australia

• ACCESS
  • Resolution is ~12 km, available for Australia.

It’s up to you which model meets your needs. You can easily switch between them on Windy.

Or you can compare them all at once:

• Europe:

• Europe newly with AROME model:

• USA:

• Hawaii:

Resolution

• Europe

• USA

• Australia

[sv1aaw]

Very nice project,
I wonder if have you the possibility to collect meteo data from PWS for best local results ??? (like weather underground)

[DaveySoCal]

@ivo said:

NOAA

Thank you for all the hard work on Windyty. It is a very beautiful and accurate forecast site. Although I have looked at the sites and sources listed above, I was unable to find out if there is any data other than satellite data used. Is data being pulled from ground or ocean based stations that go into the modeling as well?

[JerryKelih]

@ivo Hey, I was trying to use your app here in Norway for snowkiting, and water now in spring/summer. However data used in Windyty is very inaccurate for here, while yr.no seems to be 90% accurate.

Is there a way to "plug in" data from yr.no without extensive development? Im a product manager for data visualisation app myself so I understand the process and depth, but dont know your code well to undestand this.

[inomyabcs]

@DaveySoCal Yes, the weather models use observed sources that are available at the time of ingest. Common ingest sources are RADAR, satellite, aircraft reports, upper air soundings (weather balloons), ground stations, and ocean buoys. You can read more about the ingest data sources for the GFS here (it is the same for the other models), http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/GFS/doc.php paragraph 1.3 (GDAS).

[SkyHawk]

Hello and thanks for this incredible website.

My question is: Where do you get the METARs and TAFs data for the airports from? Is it an official source?

Thank you very much for all your hard work on this project. Regards!!!

[ivo]

@JerryKelih We use same data source now, ECMWF

[Tomber42]

Maybe interesting for the windy team, there are now most data of Dwd opendata http://www.dwd.de/EN/ourservices/opendata/opendata.html

Maybe you can make windy better with this

antworten

[anibalgusso]

@Tomber42 Hi, how do I get spatial data from Dwd?

[pfaure]

Hello,

I was wondering if you could incorporate the modeling information for Canada. Data found here:
https://weather.gc.ca/model_forecast/model_e.html

[Gkikas LGPZ]

@ivo
Please add ICON and AROME boundaries
in the map with the "brief overview of all models..."

[Gkikas LGPZ]

@ivo

[Gkikas LGPZ]

.....

[TomSlavkovsky]

@Gkikas-LGPZ The introductory picture was updated.

[idefix37]

@TomSlavkovsky
AROME is provided with 2 resolutions 1.25km and 2.5km. One of them is updated faster. I suppose that Windy use only the 2.5km version? In this case it should better, may be, to mention only the resolution used on Windy ?
For GFS you give now a 13km resolution. I have understood that this 13km resolution is used for computation, but then data are dispachted with a 22/23km resolution. Or has this been changed

[dzuremar]

@idefix37 Hello ! We use AROME with resolution 0.01° (1.3km). Both of the AROME resolutions have 00, 06, 12 and 18 ref time runs. There are also 03, 09, 15 and 21 ref time runs which we don't process. Advantage of AROME 0.025° (2.5km) is that it includes pressure-level layers. AROME 0.01° provides only surface-level layers, only wind and relative humidity are additionally in 20m, 50m and 100m altitude. However, AROME 0.025° also covers much smaller area - a square that covers whole France and a bit of surrounding area.

[andreasroe]

Hi @ivo! I am also curious about this topic. As I understand ECMWF is the model weather files/forecast is modeled in, and forecasts are produced of several met offices use in Europe. For what I know Yr.no (Norwegian Met Office) has more detailed topography, we often find their forecasts to be more accurate than i.e British Met Office.

Is this correctly understood? In case, is the yr.no data included in windy.com?

@JerryKelih

[Tomber42]

@andreasroe Do they offer their data for free?

[Gkikas LGPZ]

@Tomber42
They offer (for free) very little data and only for limited areas.
https://hjelp.yr.no/hc/en-us/articles/360009342993-GRIB-weather-data

[reisfor]

How can I see the source of data windy is using, for example regarding weather radar?