Barbs

[Shawn 7]

Hi how can I show barbs / direction arrows instead of animation on windy app?

[Gkikas LGPZ]

@Shawn-7
Click on the location.

TIP: Wind direction can be displayed in degrees or as a string (use "menu", "settings")

[andyasj]

I would also much prefer barbs instead of animations.
The above reply does not seem to answer the question?

[idefix37]

@andyasj
There is no possibility to show wind barbs instead of animated particles. What is the benefit of wind barbs?

[jmh2002]

An alternative variant is to turn on "Reported Wind", which will display Wind Arrows (not quite barbs, but close) and the Actual Wind now.

This can be used with or without the Particle Animation feature.

It is also possible to do the following:

• Click the screen to show the Picker, and drag to any location (Forecast data displayed)
• Hover over the Reporting Station, to see more information (Actual data displayed)

Just remember that the Picker and the Particle Animation is showing Forecast data, and the Wind Arrows and Hover information is showing Actual data now.

[jmh2002]

A further additional option as suggested by @idefix37 would be to select the Wind layer together with Forecasted weather at the bottom right.

This will display Forecasted Wind Arrows which will move and change with the Timeline (press Play, use keyboard arrows, or scroll), and can be used with or without Particle Animation.

Hope this helps :)

[UserError]

@idefix37 it's what one is taught when learning meteorology. I'd like them as well. I use PredictWind more now as they offer wind feathers, but I don't like their colour gradient.

[idefix37]

@UserError
I have learned meteorology with wind barbs too. This graphical way of showing speed and direction of wind was very useful on weather paper maps. Nowadays on a coloured weather app, wind forecast is more and more shown without wind barbs. Windy made the choice of showing speed and direction of wind using animated particles many years ago. I don’t think they will change now.
However for me the colours of wind layer is not precise enough, so I customized them as explained here :
https://community.windy.com/topic/7233/wind-colors-for-sailors-and-for-everyone?_=1590219576787
In the same way you can customise the wind layer with a 5 kt steps scale.

[idefix37]

@UserError
So you could get:

With no smoothing of colours, with 5 knots steps same as wind barbs, wind direction by animated particles (not shown here)
With such a colour map you see clearly the precise area covered by a certain speed of wind, when the wind barbs just shows a grid of speeds.
If you need I can give you the code for this scale.