Windy.com introduces soaring forecast
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Thank you for adding this feature, I love it.
I am wondering what the difference is between this forecast and the NOAA forecast is. It would be great to make it easy to see what the definition of your number is.
For example today in Hemet California the NOAA forecast is 11,010 for the max... and in yours it is 14,300 ft.
Lake Elsinore California is closer with 7800ft vs 8450 ft
https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/sgx/data/aviation/soar.htm
Is this a definition issue or a calculation / data difference ?possible Improvements and additions:
- A slight addition would be to add an adjustment for "critical updraft strength" given a selectable sink rate for a glider. For example a glider minimum sink rate of 225fpm.
- Thermal updraft velocity would be nice as well.
- Finer resolution where possible
Here is a site that shows these:
http://www.soaringpredictor.info/rasptable/RASPtable.html
Note that the actual height in this site might be under reported. I have some personal experience that this may be the case. -
As a glider pilot myself, the thermals layer is a feature that will expand the platform and bring in a new audience of users. The thermals layer is epic. I think what would complete this addition is to find a way to incorporate ridge lift and wave lift layers along with the thermals layer, as well as incorporate past history/historical data of the thermals, etc.
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Looks good. Can't wait to get some lift here and check it. Thanks
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Good idea, there are lots of parameters about gliding weather forecast for example thermal speed,buoyancy ratio and so on it would be fine to show that
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Excellent addition to the menu. Keep up the good work!
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with my hobby - hot air ballooning - it's the other way around as for the *glider folk:
mornings: we do not wait with flying until the thermals set in, we better land when they do
evenings: good to know when the thermals subside - between then and darkness we can go for a flight and sometimes it becomes too short
super useful - as is the regional indication of thermal activity
thanks @filip_k !
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Thank you for making this extremely useful layer for Windy! My main request would be to use a wider variety of colors for the lift height. It can be important to know the predicted difference of 500 meters in one area compared to another. With the current colors of red and orange it's hard to tell exactly what altitude is being forecasted.
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@byfootandbysky
You can change the color of this layer yourself and choose a variety of colors as you like.
In website or in the tablet app, go to Settings > Customize the color scale.
When the modification is done it is applied to your phone app too:
See how to modify colors:
https://community.windy.com/topic/10336/customize-the-color-scales-of-windy-layers?_=1626072094846 -
I'm very happy to see the addition of the Themals-layer. The lightning symbols for thunder storms could in my opinion be visually more prominent (alarming). Information about the spatial extent of thunder storms is critical for flight planning.
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Great work. The Thermal layers look very good. I use SkySight mainly. I have described how I use this. I have been so bold to mark suggestions (in the ideal world) for windy in bold too.
- Most of the time I login just to see if I want to fly the day after, or if the weather is below average. Checking PFD and thermal strength layers will do that trick. Often I will check the point forecast (meteogram) in Skysight to get a quick feel of the weather for local flights.
- When planning cross country I will first get a feel for the main mechanics and pressure systems, cape and work throught available thermal data towards setting a modest task with the best changes of stumbling into good weather. So for making a route, airspace layers, known waypoint layers are a big part of the info I need. I also cross reference the model with the different Windy models and will plough through the written KNMI model guidence.
- I really love the option to get a meteogram for the weather and thermal conditions on route. I screenshot this to keep handy during the flight (does reality match the forecast, if not is it better or worse? This helps altering the flight plan during flight - this meteogram is also usefull for determining a good starttime of the flight).
- What do I miss in SkySight the most? Some kind of multiple day PFD alert via SMS / APP with easy setup
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Great function! Thanks, I’ll test it next weekend;-)
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I am so very impressed with the whole application. Fantastic resource, easy to use, great layers, visual layout. Really impressive stuff.
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Nice addition!!
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Hi Sirs,
very interesting feature. Thanks a lot for this great job.
BTW what's the meaning of bottom right strip in m - 0 1k 2k..... 8k ?
Are the values related to the width or to the maximum climb of clouds.
How it is possible to get infos on the ascensional speed?
Thanks in advance
Stefano
Italy -
@steve66-0 Hello, the bar shows the occurrence of cumuli and altitude of thermals.
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Hi,
Great addition to a fantastic tool. Your commitment to soaring inspired me to sign up to Premium.
In theory "cloud base", "cloud tops", "height of thermals" and the map of blue/Cu/OD areas already cover the essentials perfectly.
But the problem is the accuracy. Sometimes the "height of thermals" is below the "cloud base", sometimes it is higher than the "cloud tops"! And then the soundings often appear to be different again.
It would be useful to have more info on what "height of thermals" is supposed to signify. Is it the tops of thermals (TI=0 / PBL height etc), top of useable lift (HCrit etc), or some kind of custom parameter similar to a "star rating" / "PFD"?
I've tried most of the soaring forecasts and still use some. For the UK, the specialist forecasts are often no more accurate than looking carefully at the general weather forecasts and observations and doing a simple estimation of cloudbase from the temp/dew point spread.
So my hope would be improved accuracy of what already exists, rather than more and more different ways to view inaccurate data.
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Will the full version of this layer show trigger temps
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@jakubvrana I have noticed same thing here in middle parts of Finland. Over optimistic not that much.
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Great app and great expansion! I live and fly in the middle parts of Finland (Oulu - Ylivieska - Rautavaara - Pudasjärvi - region) and I have noticed that here windy gets the wind rigth most of the time and also the high clouds. With the Cumulus its not that accurate. With thermal height it is quite optimistic. Many times eventually day gets as high as windy promises but many times windy forecasts +2000m amsl already for morning / noon but in reality thermals might start to work in the afternoon. It feels that windy forecasts every sunny day +2000m heights for the thermals.
I have been comparing different models (ECMWF to ICON-EU) for the wind and different levels of clouds but so far I can only say there is some variation (of course).
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@Filip_K Looks pretty well. How about daily trends, i.e. every hour or 2 hours?
