Hurricane wind speeds and Windy app reported speeds

chris6l772

The Windy app shows wind speeds but Hurricane Milton has reported wind speeds of 150 mph but the Windy app shows 40 mph. What is the reason for the difference? Thank you.

idefix37

@chris6l772
See these related posts
https://community.windy.com/topic/34070/hurricane-beryl-winds/2?=1728318701752
https://community.windy.com/topic/9456/dorian-wind-speed-and-pressure/2?=1728318701766

hullknocker

@idefix37

Thank you for the related posts, but what is the current wind for MILTON? (Not the weather model's "predicted" wind and not the NOAA "forecast" wind.)

If windy.com's map is saying Hurricane Milton's wind speed is 58knots and the windy.com page for hurricane Milton is saying the sustained wind speed is 130 knots, what is the actual wind speed at that moment at the site?

It is confusing to see windy.com wind speeds around 58knots in the same area that windy.com hurricane overlay, the NWS, and mainstream media is reporting above 130knots.

idefix37

@hullknocker

What is the current wind?

Windy does not display the current wind as it would be measured by an anemometer near the eye of the hurricane. How could Windy do this and create a reported wind speed map?

Windy visualises the forecast of several global models and regional models. So windy is not reporting wind speeds.

mainstream media is reporting above 130knots.

This is the NHC forecast/observation using Dvorak analysis on satellite views and aircraft recon by Hurricane Hunters.
You can get these wind speeds from NHC in Windy by viewing the Hurricane tracker.

SuperDave8000

Similarly, the wind conditions projected don't match forecast either. Milton should be down to Cat1 by the time it crosses the eastern coastline, and should show winds around 70knts. However, I cannot find any forecast for that time period at the east coast that shows anything over 40. Is it simply that the time slice won't allow this detail?

I would expect that SOMEWHERE in that area should be showing 70knts, but nothing shows this in forecast.

Chappy123

So basically, Windy is useless in terms of reporting actual windspeed? That's what it seems like.

David Polášek

@Chappy123
No, Windy shows both wind forecasts and measurements of the hurricane itself (thanks to NOAA hurricane hunters).

I've made a summary here: https://community.windy.com/topic/37123/understand-hurricane-tracking-forecast-and-measurements

SuperDave8000

@David-Polášek We understand that Windy cannot show realtime accurate wind speeds. But with a storm carrying 70+ knts, we still wonder why the forecast of this exact storm doesn't FORECAST any speeds at this level. I understand averages - and if they're taken across an hour's time, they would show much lower speeds. But the SAILOR in this situation saw 70+ winds go by.

It suggests that the models on Windy present themselves as optimistic, and that we need to adjust our expectations.

SuperDave8000

@David-Polášek Actually, now that I think further, I imagine this is just an aspect of the best mode for Windy to use "on average". Showing averages across an hour or more can help show a day's forecast with better clarity. So maybe this is simply a problem with the best Windy forecast mode "on avergage".

So perhaps what we could use would be a pessimistic or more granular forecast when we enable Hurricane tracker.

Suty

@SuperDave8000 Hi, personally, I would recommend checking Wind gust layer in Windy as well, since it shows peaks of the windspeed in the last 3 hours so it can better visualize these threats.

Bob Archer

Ok... also question about the visualization of the Hurricane tracker. Why does the wind animation show a hurricane location so much different from the like hurricane icon is showing? For example:

Where is the hurricane? Is it where the hurricane icon is, or there the center of the swirling wind is?

idefix37

@Bob-Archer

The hurricane is where the satellite and weather radar show it to be. These layers are in near real time.

On the other hand, the wind layer from all models is a forecast, as is the NHC tracker. The sources of this forecast data are not synchronized and are not in real time.
We may assume that the official track from NHC (that you call the hurricane icon) is a consensus between several models and so it is probably more precise than each individual model.