What weather am I really seeing on a Windy map?
-
I have always been puzzled by the time zones on a Windy map as I check into the future. I hope I can explain my question so it make sense. But feel free to tell me I'm nuts if you want, lol.
Let's say it is 7 am today here in San Diego, CA USA (the west coast of the USA). When I am looking at the current time, 7 am Windy map, I understand that places like NYC (USA east coast) are 3 time zones away but what weather is being shown in NYC? Am I seeing their 10 am weather or seeing their past 7 am weather?
Ok, now let’s say I move the time slider into the future. If I look at the San Diego 7 am map for tomorrow, am I seeing NYC's forecasted 7 am weather for tomorrow or their forecasted 10 am weather for tomorrow? London and San Diego are 8 hours apart so if I am displaying the 7 am map for tomorrow here in San Diego, am I seeing the 3 pm London weather forecast or their 7 am forecast for tomorrow?
I hope I have asked my question clear enough so that I can get help straightening out my poor brain, ha ha.
-
@JimInSanDiego
the map you see is at certain time all over the world. The model (let say ECMWF) makes "maps" in a 3hour time steps.
So there are maps for 00:00 UTC, 03:00 UTC, 06:00 UTC etc (UTC stands for Coordinated Universal Time, aprox. the time at London, England).
When you run the Windy (and it knows your location) it recalls the forecast map that shows the situation at the time you have put in the time slide-bar.
Let say you see NOW (23:00 local time for you) an zoomed out rain map of the world.
Here in Greece (10 time zones east from you) I see the same map but the time stamp for me is 09 a.m.
Actually this is the 06:00 UTC map produced by the model.
Hope I helped ... -
@JimInSanDiego
If you are asking for the displays are shown when you press "Forecast for this location" (Basic, meteogram) the answer is that those displays are in local time for the location.
Try this: chose your local forecast. The temperature diagram has it maximum at noon-afternoon time (12~15 p.m.).
Now pick another location, far away - let say in Europe. Again the max. temp. is at time 12~15 (noon). That shows that the diagram is for the local time of the location in Europe. -
Thanks. Your answers did the trick. I now understand. Thanks again.