Windy launches "Observation vs. Forecast"

bluejay2048

Love you guys and the hard work you do! Go wxgeeks!!

amusk

Hi - is this available globally? I am in Australia and the Windy site displaying does not have any extra options or features.

Gkikas LGPZ

@amusk

For Sydney

9c58daff-6a8c-4b16-a637-ecbdb0c540c2-εικόνα.png

blahdi

Awesome - I am really looking forward to trying this new capability out. Not seen such a capability on other weather web sites - thanks for the innovation!

blahdi

@blahdi I am unable to get this observation vs forecast view. I am in the US-Seattle.

Is this feature released to US?

blahdi

@blahdi I got it to work. I did not know I had to click on weather station (Its obvious in hindsight) to enable observation vs forecast.

But, I don't get the same view as Sydney above - I only see Temperature, No combined tEmp, Wind, Pressure, Category.

blahdi

sorry to spam - i cannot delete my previous comments due to privileges.

I got it to work now nearly as shown above -it depends on which weather stations I click on - maybe, they are shown depending on whether they only show temp, wind et al, and some weather stations measure all of them.. The weather station I happened to be looking at only measures temperature - and then that's what confused me initially.

Thank u for this wonderful feature.

Tomber42

i don't like this new feature because it will be available on all weather stations..official and PWS. But what should the point on PWS? PWS are often not reliable..because they are not installed with the complicated rules for installing a weather station for meassure real! values. And then compare this PWS to the weather forecast? Useless imho...

justinlimbo

@Tomber42 said in Windy launches "Observation vs. Forecast":

i don't like this new feature because it will be available on all weather stations..official and PWS. But what should the point on PWS? PWS are often not reliable..because they are not installed with the complicated rules for installing a weather station for meassure real! values. And then compare this PWS to the weather forecast? Useless imho...

What are those "complicated rules"? Can you explain, please?
If you don't like the PWS reports, then don't click on them. For some it might be helpful information though. Especially if you know where and how the PWS is installed you can evaluate the data for yourself. Maybe a photo of the weather station's location could help.

csabatatar

@justinlimbo
Such things that are specified for example on the Wunderground website here in the "Personal Weather Station Installation Guide", such as: where to place it depending on the environment, at what height...etc. All of the criterias that are given standing for keep a standard predetermined accuracy. In case of these conditions are not met with the given criterias, it will lead to inaccuracy, and obviously these weather stations will not be reliable at all. (as @Tomber42 said in his reply)
Anyway I absolutely agree with @Tomber42 because it's trivial that most of people looking at weather stations to get precise and reliable observation informations.. such as for example the Airports' weather stations are mainly the most reliable stations in my opinion.. and I can totally trust in it (because of it has regular maintenances, and operates under strictly specified standards).

And it would be nice if the same trust could be presented in the PWS's in the future, but imho that will need some installation criterias in the side of Windy.

If Windy would like to make it reliable and a good information source (such as now the most of weather stations), I think they should make a "Personal Weather Station Installation Guide" too, or something similar to that (as Wunderground did..), so those people who reported their PWS's should make those configurations that are laid down in the "Installation Guide", and their PWS's will appear just after that on Windy site.

To my mind, it would be a good solution to the all "PWS's unreliability and real data measuring" questions.

Btw, I don't say that this is a bad thing, I like it really much, and this "Observation vs forecast" feature is really unique and useful. But I'm just wondering what will happen with the newly coming PWS feature on the map.. And I just got this idea that I wrote above.

This is not an offense from my side, these are only some thoughts of the questioned area and potential ideas for the predictable problems.

Anyway I trust in Windy team, you guys always make really invaluable and unique features with a nice and clean interface. Just do it guys, as you always do!:))

Tomber42

@justinlimbo see https://library.wmo.int/pmb_ged/wmo_8_en-2012.pdf

Guide to Meteorological Instruments
and Methods of Observation of WMO

jsdhornby

What does the colored graph area between the time and the temp represent?

csabatatar

@jsdhornby
That coloured area represents the observed temperature on the upper side and the dew point on the lower side measured by the weather station. And its colour is corresponding to its colour scale depending on its value.

You can note that the more closer these two lines (values) to each other, the more saturated is the air. Obviously when the two values are equal --> the air is 100% saturated in this case (it's depicted on windy as a very little gap between the two lines, but above the chart at the value indicator you can read 2 equal values). In this 100% saturated air, the air contains a lot of moisture and there exist a low visibility condition, due to the very high probability of fog creation, which can transform into a low level stratus cloud with the help of a little wind. So it can influences the developing weather phenomenas.

Anyway, the other 2 dashed lines represents the forecasted TEMP and DEW POINT, for that weather model, which you select at the bottom of the chart.
Screenshot-2019-02-14-21.05.58.png

Or if you are thought about the starting pop up charts and not the weather stations' "observation vs forecast" charts, there the coloured area represents only the forecasted temperature, as you can see it below.
Screenshot-2019-02-14-21.27.23.png

justinlimbo

@Tomber42 said in Windy launches "Observation vs. Forecast":

@justinlimbo see https://library.wmo.int/pmb_ged/wmo_8_en-2012.pdf

Guide to Meteorological Instruments
and Methods of Observation of WMO

Thank you!

LAR-48

Usually most of the forecasters use the European model forecast predictions!

jsdhornby

@csabatatar Such a good explanation, csabatatar, thank you very, very much. It was indeed the "observation vs forecast" representation that I didn't understand. And now I do!!. Thank you!

Gkikas LGPZ

@LAR-48
... as a guide line.
For more detailed forecasts they use (local) Limited Area Models.

david_lexicon

@ivo Marvellous and impressive. Keep it up.

Aliovai

Great feature! I love it

Metodi

"Observation vs. forecast" information is nowadays a MUST! Well done!