Track the Sun's position and sunrise/sunset times with Windy
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Did you know you can use plugins to extend Windy's functionality? (If you're not familiar with Windy, it's an extraordinary tool for weather forecast visualization that is 100% free)
Let me show you a brand new Sun position plugin by Jochen Jacobs as an example of what plugins can do.
Sun position plugin adds sundial to Windy's picker. Moreover, if you'll activate the Sun Position layer, you'll get details about sunset and sunrise times.
The sun dial displays the current sun azimuth on the map using a black line from the picker position. Additionally, dashed lines show the azimuth of sunrise and sunset. Clicking on the sunrise or sunset line will set the current time to the sunrise or sunset time respectively.
Sun detail pane
The sun detail pane shows the time of Astronomical, Nautical, and Divil Dusk and Dawn; start and end of Golden hour, and Solar noon (watch a video below).
Clicking on a time will set the current time to that time. Also, the current time and sun azimuth and altitude are displayed.
Once the plugins is loaded, you can access the sundial and the detail pane via right-click menu (see How to load plugin section below).
Please note it's an early version plugin and there's some more work to do. As Jochen writes on plugin's page, mobile version does not currently work and the details pane can be a bit confusing if not all times exist.
For example, in the image above there is no Astronomical Dusk and Dawn because no night exists (astronomical twilight for the entire night). In the future, the non-existing times will be hidden.You can track the current state, the future development and the changelog on plugin's page here.
How to load a plugin
To load a plugin, simply insert its short name (
sun-position) to www.windy.com/plugins (or access it via Install Windy plugin menu item)There's more in our plugins list, like Airspaces, the first ever Windy plugin, a Skew-T diagram and other plugins.
Related links
