Like you said, past wasn't that good. We've improved a lot our life condition over the years. Does it mean we have to stop thinking and stop improving it? I don't think so.

It's true, some ecologists are more or less extreme in their visions. But there are some important facts however, among others: Climate is changing too quickly for a lot of species to survive, and we are killing the oceans with plastic and overfishing. And this comes from scientists from all over the world. I saw with my own eyes a part of the north atlantic plastic vortex last year while sailing from Europe to the Caribbean and we got stuck in that thing for three days. This isn't catastrophism but something real. So yeah we might have some technology "ready for it" and somehow some of us will cope with all that shit... By the way, please send scientific articles about this because so far i've never heard of anything (coming from serious researches, I'm like you and try not to make assumptions) that could clean up that mess or regulate effectively global temperatures...

But anyway, you can't blame people because they try to awake consciences, even if you sometimes don't agree with them. You can't blame them because they fight for a better future. Because this is precisely what you wrote : "Before it was shit actually". So yeah, it means that one day some people thought that sewage you were talking about, going directly into rivers, was a bad idea in the past and you agreed with it obviously. And for sure at that time some people were like "I'm fed up with your waste of money. This river is flowing to the ocean anyway". I think you contradict yourself in a way.

Moreover, regarding the app... It won't be possible to find a weather app / website not talking about global warming and the fact that we should change certain things. Because climatologits see the real crap with their own eyes as well through their studies and data. They're on the front line and they're actually the ones who first sounded the alarm. So trying to find good weather info and data without the catastrophic or realistic part is kind of contradictory as well in my opinion.

Stay safe,
Gabriel

@Siff

Hello, I'm in Sint-Maarten and I survived Irma (My house didn't). REAL wind values have been constantly updated, thanks to NOAA planes flying through the hurricane constantly. They are today the only way to give us real wind data during such storms (because instruments on the ground fly away). During the peak intensity just before Irma hits sint maarten, they measured 225 mph wind gusts in the eyewall of the hurricane, and sustained wind of 185 mph. We had an anemometer here in Grand-Case airport. the last wind gust measured by the instrument before it broke was 135 mph 2 hours before the eyewall. Everything is destroyed here.

Models like GFS and ECMWF cannot predict hurricane winds, especially close to the eye, where the wind is the strongest, because the resolution scale of these models is not wide enough (this is the main reason to me). In the front of the hurricane, there is northerly wind with strong updrafts, 7 kms away, in the eye there is no wind and a strong downdraft, and the 7km away there is a strong southerly wind with updrafts again ! All of that with huge changes in pressure. It's so powerful in a so small area ! That's why they created the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting model(HWRF). It is the only model using recon aircraft data, satellite imagery and buoys data at the same time !!! And it is the more precise model to predict hurricane wind direction and force (not the path of the hurricane).

So, regarding wind force and direction, the more you are close to the eye, the more GFS and ECMWF model will be inaccurate. But these models are better to predict the path of hurricanes, they work well on bigger scales !

Like I said I vote for AROME. This picture shows the actual coverage of the arome model which works now in other places in the world.
Arpege model is also available in open data as Arome is...

Here is a website using the AROME model open data to display them on some maps: https://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/arome.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=50

Very good job and improvements as always :)

Yep, good point, but I think It would be simplier to use the same feature if you're a pilot or not.

First, it might be a good idea to explain what are height and altitude to other users => height has the ground level for reference (AGL-above ground level). Altitude has the main sea level for reference (MSL)

There are in my opinion two options regarding aeronautical weather data :

-Forecaster point of view: Using charts, he gives the ALTITUDE of clouds (from MSL - main sea level) and doesn't care how you use the info...

-Pilots or controllers point of view: They don't want you to crash and provide the HEIGHT (from AGL - above ground level) of cloud base. So you have an idea of what you're going to see (or not...) while arriving or departing from an airport, whatever the altitude of the airfield.

Considering this, I think that giving the HEIGHT of cloud base is the best option (AGL), which is already the case. It is also good for non pilot users as it provides a useful and easily understandable info.

Regarding Freezing level... It's indeed more useful for pilots when using ALTITUDE (MSL) for other technical reasons. And... It's more logical for pilots but also for other users ... For hikers for exemple. They want to know the freezing ALTITUDE and not height, so they can compare it with the ALTITUDE of a mountain for exemple, because what is depicted on topo charts are ALTITUDEs.

A good solution in my opinion would be to use the words "height" and "altitude"in windy layers names and provide a clear definition of these 2 terms in the help forum section/legend, and obviously use MSL for freezing level and AGL for cloud base.

Hey,

Well, a good alternative is to use "Satellite layer", with "Infra +" sublayer (and by the way that's what some other apps call "radar" but it's far from being true):

Satellite is not updated as often as radar layer though, and it also doesn't work the same way, as you might know already:

-Radars are on ground and get echoes from intense precipitations (liquid water). They reveal instantly the storms cells and that's why they're used on planes too. The main disadvantage is that only small areas are covered because radar echoes are limited in range and blocked by obstacles (mountains...)

-The enhanced satellite layer, using infrared bands, show the coolest and intense cloud tops, from 250 K (≈ -23°C) to 200 K (≈ -73°C), see the color scale on windy. Those cool clouds are the result of intense convection that pushes air upwards, which triggers thunderstorms. So it's also a good tool to track storms.

Let's have a look over Malaysia, It seems that there are huge cumulonimbus clouds developing in the area. Big wooly clouds, some of them even have a shadow over the ocean:

Let's have a look at the enhanced infrared picture now... Yes, something is definitely happening. The color scale reveals high intense cold cloud tops (thunderstorms) :

Using the radar layer, I could see the most active cells and storm cores. But I should be aware that clouds too far from radars will not be depicted (depending on power, height of the radar, etc...). Also some mountains might block the signal to the south:

Nice show observed last week in Slovenia.

Northerly wind pushed up by the Julian Alps. This picture shows the south of the alps.

Hello ! :)

Could you tell us what your main ideas for improvement are ?

Indeed Windy is a great tool to have a quick access to general weather like surface wind, cloud base, temperature... You can also see Jetstreams patterns but I doubt general aviation pilots are interested in jetstream for flight planning... You can also quickly see lows and high pressure systems... With some experience you can locate warm and cold fronts... Of course, notams, taf and metar are accessible with recent tafs which is great ! And I was about to forget the awesome RADAR data !!!!!!!!

As you know however, aviation weather is more than that and it has to be provided in a very professional and standardized way. This involves for instance "significant weather charts", which are always drawn by forecasters on a regular basis after a careful analysis of multiples parameters including pilot reports.

This is why you should never rely on Windy for flight planning or any other app (free or not) that doesn't provide professional charts and data. The best solution for me to fly VFR or IFR on small planes is to rely on the aviation met service of the country I intend to fly. It's 99% of the time free and you get official aviation weather. For that reason, I never use an non official app to get aviation weather forecasts. (Or yes...there are private professional providers like rocket route... Jeppesen... Those are expensive though).

Regarding those charts:
I think Windy uses open data to provide us this awesome automated tool. Data like aviation charts or cold / warm fronts, which are not automatically generated (drawn by someone), cannot be used by windy as far as I know.

See you in the sky !
Gab

Hello,

Yes it's a storm now! But a it's a very small one at least. Its convection area is very small and thunderstorms appear to be quite small compared to other typical tropical storms. However at this moment thunderstorms tops are reaching FL450. That represents a lot of water that could surely cause flash floods and mudslides...

Satellite imagery showing the size of the storm and thunderstorm tops

People from Guadeloupe to Grenada should be extremely careful regarding floodings, wind gusts and also waves caused by this little storm.

AROME wind accumulation for the next 42 hours, showing gusts up to 130 km/h

And ahah yes I didn't notice that about island names :)

Those clouds are pure beauty.

You made a little mistake with the altitudes (15000 and 20000 km)

:) thanks for all these articles.

@mrandall overlays are available directly from nhc and other specialized websites. Feel free as well to add them when necessary! :) there also a live aircraft recon overlay available at tropicalatlantic website.

Hey,

Well, a good alternative is to use "Satellite layer", with "Infra +" sublayer (and by the way that's what some other apps call "radar" but it's far from being true):

Satellite is not updated as often as radar layer though, and it also doesn't work the same way, as you might know already:

-Radars are on ground and get echoes from intense precipitations (liquid water). They reveal instantly the storms cells and that's why they're used on planes too. The main disadvantage is that only small areas are covered because radar echoes are limited in range and blocked by obstacles (mountains...)

-The enhanced satellite layer, using infrared bands, show the coolest and intense cloud tops, from 250 K (≈ -23°C) to 200 K (≈ -73°C), see the color scale on windy. Those cool clouds are the result of intense convection that pushes air upwards, which triggers thunderstorms. So it's also a good tool to track storms.

Let's have a look over Malaysia, It seems that there are huge cumulonimbus clouds developing in the area. Big wooly clouds, some of them even have a shadow over the ocean:

Let's have a look at the enhanced infrared picture now... Yes, something is definitely happening. The color scale reveals high intense cold cloud tops (thunderstorms) :

Using the radar layer, I could see the most active cells and storm cores. But I should be aware that clouds too far from radars will not be depicted (depending on power, height of the radar, etc...). Also some mountains might block the signal to the south:

Hello,

Please see post and answers, and feel free to post in this topic to avoid multiple topics about the same thing:

https://community.windy.com/topic/9720/hi-end-category-4-hurricane-lorenzo-makes-a-turn-towards-europe-but-no-threat-to-land

And yes, Acores are on Lorenzo path I agree with you, and of course I consider those islands as "land". They are not "rarely" hit unfortunately. It happens quite often. However they were threaten by a Cat 4 hurricane this time and it was scary. Fortunately, It will most probably be a cat 1 hurricane when it reaches Acores, which is not particularely rare (but of course still dangerous). I hope impacts will be limited.

Yeah sad to see that Islands are too often forgotten ... Yes they are land and people live on it by the way :)

And Lorenzo is now the most intense hurricane ever recorded so far east (~ 40° W) in the Atlantic. Last one was hurricane Helene in 1988. But it reached the same intensity 400 miles west of current lorenzo position and much more south! Julia in 2010 reached its peak intensity on 33°W, 115 knots windspeed.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Lorenzo peak intensity was reached on Friday 27th around 09:00 UTC:

Minimal pressure : 937 Hpa.
Wind: 145 mph or 126 kts or 233 km/h.
Gusts: up to 173 mph or 150 kts or 278 km/h.

Lorenzo should be downgraded as a cat 1 hurricane before it reaches Acores islands. Impacts on the region are still expected to be intense and dangerous.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

It's been 3 years hurricanes have been breaking records in the Atlantic basin... Irma, Maria, Dorian, Lorenzo...I'm not sure it's a coincidence.

As forecasted, hurricanes are becoming more powerful, they form earlier next to Africa and then affect directly Europe. It's crazy.

@mrandall overlays are available directly from nhc and other specialized websites. Feel free as well to add them when necessary! :) there also a live aircraft recon overlay available at tropicalatlantic website.

@stanard Well 29mph is not that ridiculous because the wind at the very center of it should be equal to zero :)

Just read the post above.
No models can depict the real conditions in that kind of storms except very specialized ones which are used by scientists, running only in the area of the storm. Can you imagine? The wind changes 360 degrees in an area of 10km, from 0 to 180 mph and with a huge pressure drop... That is insane. No super computer can modelize this. We still need planes to investigate storms like that to really know what's happening.

Moreover windy is not intended to predict wind in such phenomenom and I swear it's very accurate in your normal people life.

...

Pray for the Bahamas... I was in the eye of hurricane Irma and I know that cat 5 hurricanes are some kind of monsters which haunt you forever, especially if experienced on a small island that is flat and not big enough to reduce wind speed and stop the convection... And on top of that extremely vulnerable to waves and storm surge... It's definitely a life threatening hurricane and some people are going to die there because of it. It's terrible to know it and having nowhere to run like on the "mainland" where you can follow evacuation routes.

Stay safe!

Well that was intense indeed here over Slovenia.

Many flight were cancelled and the airport stayed closed for hours because of lighting strike hazard.

Like you said, past wasn't that good. We've improved a lot our life condition over the years. Does it mean we have to stop thinking and stop improving it? I don't think so.

It's true, some ecologists are more or less extreme in their visions. But there are some important facts however, among others: Climate is changing too quickly for a lot of species to survive, and we are killing the oceans with plastic and overfishing. And this comes from scientists from all over the world. I saw with my own eyes a part of the north atlantic plastic vortex last year while sailing from Europe to the Caribbean and we got stuck in that thing for three days. This isn't catastrophism but something real. So yeah we might have some technology "ready for it" and somehow some of us will cope with all that shit... By the way, please send scientific articles about this because so far i've never heard of anything (coming from serious researches, I'm like you and try not to make assumptions) that could clean up that mess or regulate effectively global temperatures...

But anyway, you can't blame people because they try to awake consciences, even if you sometimes don't agree with them. You can't blame them because they fight for a better future. Because this is precisely what you wrote : "Before it was shit actually". So yeah, it means that one day some people thought that sewage you were talking about, going directly into rivers, was a bad idea in the past and you agreed with it obviously. And for sure at that time some people were like "I'm fed up with your waste of money. This river is flowing to the ocean anyway". I think you contradict yourself in a way.

Moreover, regarding the app... It won't be possible to find a weather app / website not talking about global warming and the fact that we should change certain things. Because climatologits see the real crap with their own eyes as well through their studies and data. They're on the front line and they're actually the ones who first sounded the alarm. So trying to find good weather info and data without the catastrophic or realistic part is kind of contradictory as well in my opinion.

Stay safe,
Gabriel

Hello,

Yes it's a storm now! But a it's a very small one at least. Its convection area is very small and thunderstorms appear to be quite small compared to other typical tropical storms. However at this moment thunderstorms tops are reaching FL450. That represents a lot of water that could surely cause flash floods and mudslides...

Satellite imagery showing the size of the storm and thunderstorm tops

People from Guadeloupe to Grenada should be extremely careful regarding floodings, wind gusts and also waves caused by this little storm.

AROME wind accumulation for the next 42 hours, showing gusts up to 130 km/h

And ahah yes I didn't notice that about island names :)

Hello, here are some suggestions to you guys:

1. Would it be interesting to have a windshear layer on Windy? Basically a map displaying intensity of wind speed and wind direction changes with altitude, and shear direction. We could thing of one layer from surface up to upper levels, and 3 sublayers : low level shear, mid level shear, upper level windshear.

2. AROME model has been available on windy for a while now. However, it covers more areas than a part of Europe. In fact, it's also working in the Caribbean, Indian ocean and Pacific ocean. It is possible to add those covered areas to Windy?

I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Stay safe :)

Gabriel

A low pressure (99L) area is moving westwards over the Atlantic and a tropical depression or storm is likely to form during the coming days. Although models don't predict a powerful phenomena, the storm could triggers intense rainfall over the Lesser Antilles and most particularly Dominica which is still recovering from hurricane Maria (Cat5, Sept. 2017).

Dominica is very sensitive to rain, especially after the aftermath of hurricane Maria. In 2015, tropical storm Erika brought intense rainfalls over the tiny island. The resulting floodings and mudslides killed at least 25 people.

As some local media and officials already advised, I think people living in the area of Lesser Antilles/windward islands should monitor carefully this low pressure area.

The 2019 hurricane season has been very quiet so far, at least in the Atlantic bassin! Let's hope it stays like this until October!

Screenshot from Saturday 24th, 2019, 17:00 UTC, Wind accumulation for the next 10 days.