Weather Radar forecast

Sackelrapp

Is there a weather radar forecast available in the settings? Could not find this but it would be great to have. It is just a computed forecast based on wind / temp / huidity.
Thanks

idefix37

@dan-steven-kuhlmann
No, there no weather radar forecast in Windy, just real time radar observation.
What do you mean with ‘ It is just a computed forecast based on wind / temp / huidity’ ? Is it what you call a weather radar forecast?

Sackelrapp

@idefix37 with this sentence I mean it would be so easy to forecast.
Like it does the MeteoSwiss App.
That would be great. As a airline pilot we use windy all the time. But only for the thunderstorm forecast we have to take other apps.

idefix37

@dan-steven-kuhlmann

What MeteoSwiss does is known as ‘nowcasting’ which needs a high resolution model on a limited area. They use a modified weather model called COSMO with a 1.1km resolution and an update cycle every 3 hours, 8 times per day. It enables them to show a radar-like imagery for the next 30 hours.
https://www.meteoswiss.admin.ch/home.html?tab=rain

Yes, it is forecast, but not provided by weather radars.
How could Windy do the same today over the world or at least over Europe? Windy only visualises existing and available data. May be in future this type of model will be widely used? Everyone would like to get this type of forecast as we do in the domain of this model.

martin.pozor

@idefix37 Nowcasting rain based on radar data is something I really miss and while Windy is the most comprehensive weather app I know of, lack of this feature forces me (and some users I know) to use other apps on the side just for this purpose.

You are saying this model / data is not available. I am not sure what other apps are doing (and I mean 3rd party apps, not necessarily official apps of national weather services) that it is possible for them but it is still problematic for Windy. I would guess (and feel free to correct me), that while this data is available, it is restricted to specific locations and/or there is a cost for using them.

Couln't Windy consider consuming and presenting such data as other apps do? They could be provided only for Premium users, or some possible higher Premium tier (if cost is the thing which currently prevents it). Local area limitation of such nowcasting could be somehow indicated in the UI to avoid confusion (if the problem is of not having the data globally).

Thanks

idefix37

@martin-pozor

I don’t know which apps you refer to. They probably don’t use special weather models, they just keep the last image of the radar loop and move it during the next hour (and more) in the same direction and at same speed as the motion during the previous hour. And so radar echoes are not changing during the next time frame. In case of convective precipitation, this method can result to wrong forecast.
The Nowcasting as done by MeteoSwiss is based on a high resolution model i.e. 1km and needs a lot a development that a weather app visualising weather data cannot achieve.

Sackelrapp

@idefix37 there is a weather app called weathermate Pro with a radar forecast of +3hrs. And they do not just move the image because you can see direction changes and disappear of storm cells. I do not know how they do this but it seems to work very well.

idefix37

@sackelrapp
OK I’ll try to test it.

@idefix37
Are there any plans to implement radar forecast, this would be a great feature. Without this feature, the premium version is less interesting.
Radar forecast like in the “buienradar” app would be a great feature.