Visualizing weather stations used to interpolate
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Normally Windy is very reliable for me but last week’s forecast was very wrong for several days, predicting snow and very cold temps.
According to this post, Windy interpolates between nearby stations to create the forecast at my position. This explains the problem since I was camping at the bottom of a large cliff face. The closest towns were at the top of that cliff and thus much higher elevation so they did get plenty of snow.
I’m having trouble using Windy to investigate this, however. It will tell me the name of the weather stations it is using, but I can only see them on the map one at a time by tapping Each. When I do, I see that one station but then my forecast moves to that spot and I see a different list of stations. So I have to reset my location, then pull up the station list again and pick another one. It’s hard to remember which stations I’ve already checked and where they all were.
Is there some way to view weather stations on the map? I haven’t found anything yet. It can show all sorts of things - webcams, fires, etc. but not the actual weather stations! That seems odd, for a weather tool.
If I could just view on the map the handful of stations being used for my forecast, that would be extremely valuable. I could then pick the one that I know will be most similar to my position and just view that forecast.
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@zamboni said in Visualizing weather stations used to interpolate:
According to this post, Windy interpolates between nearby stations to create the forecast at my position.
No, Windy does not interpolate between weather stations, but between the grid points computed by the weather model.
Weather stations carry observations and do not predict weather.
I was camping at the bottom of a large cliff face. The closest towns were at the top of that cliff and thus much higher elevation so they did get plenty of snow.
In mountains try to use high resolution models if available. In your country use NAM and in a near future HRRR model.
Is there some way to view weather stations on the map?
Yes, click Reported temperature or Reported wind
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@idefix37 thank you for clarifying those points. I did try to understand the situation before posting but am just a layperson who is used to simply googling “the forecast”.
I only recently realized that I was using Windy “wrong” by not comparing between different models (forecasts) and weather stations (actual observations). I knew all this information was available and the help articles do explain these facts — but actually understanding how to use it all together to answer day-to-day questions takes practice.
Please help me check if I understand the following correctly:
Right now I am in a valley. The nearest station is 13km North and 500m higher. The next-closest one is 26km South and 300m lower. No other stations nearby. NAM (5km) is a good match for both stations, and that model’s resolution is smaller than my distance from both. So I think the NAM forecast is best for my current location. Is that correct? -
@zamboni
Yes, it should be. Additionally if you use Windy.com website, the HRRR model is now available and will probably give even better results (not yet available in the phone app).
For several days prediction on a wider scale you can use ECMWF, for instance to know if there is a chance of rain, cloudiness or bright weather.