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 :)
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
Nice show observed last week in Slovenia.
Northerly wind pushed up by the Julian Alps. This picture shows the south of the alps.
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 !
Those clouds are pure beauty.
You made a little mistake with the altitudes (15000 and 20000 km)
:) thanks for all these articles.
I lived in New Zealand for one year and I can tell you they know about those storms... Winds up to 120 km/h is common in new-zealand and the local met office often issues storm watches and advisories. The term "cyclone" alone or "hurricane" or "typhoon" is not to be used there because they are front related storms, like the winter storms in Europe (but turning clockwise in the southern hemisphere). When a warm air mass from the tropics and a cold air from the pole start to swirl, an extra tropical storm or extra tropical cyclone is born. Hurricanes, typhoons or (tropical) cyclone (all the same thing) are formed within the same tropical air mass and are not front related.
Today on french TV for the transat race "Route du rhum" !
Hello,
Be also aware that models can also predict clear sky where there is a high pressure area... But those areas are subject to fog or very low clouds, especially in the morning. Some other local phenomena can be very hard to take into account by computer models (local winds, advection fog)...
The sky can also be clear but "grey" at high altitude because of dense high cloud layers coming from a distant thunderstorm area for exemple...
In the caribbean it can be also very hazy because of fine sand coming from the Sahara. Even without a cloud in the sky, people all agree to say that "weather" is bad or that it's going to rain...
In all those cases, sky is actually clear... but not according to our expectations of a clear sky... or simply not clear from our very precise location (in case of fog, it can be clear less than one kilometer away).
It wasn't sunny but what the weather looked like exactly that particular day?
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.
You can say the sky is clear when you see no clouds from your position. However, it doesn't mean the visibility is good, and that you're gonna be able to see stars for exemple, because others things have to be taken into account (light pollution, haze, ect...)
That is also an official definition for weather given to plane pilots, but in this case, you only consider a volume with the destination airport in the middle (so from that airport a controller might see distant clouds out of the airport volume, and announce "sky clear" to an arriving aircraft).
But I think the first definition is what he wanted to say. :) ?
Well,
Same case in Slovenia. Hottest ever temp has been recorded for february : 24.1°C on the 28th.
https://t.co/WJJx5Njb07
The same in Hungary... 23.5°C recorded in Sarvar. This is a new record for the country...
https://www.met.hu/omsz/OMSZ_hirek/index.php?id=3135&m=2&hir=Uj_orszagos_es_fovarosi_homersekleti_rekord_(2019.02.28
And I was thinking... Ok this is happening in Europe.... But...
Tasmania has just experienced 39.7°C on the 2nd of march. All time record...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-02/march-temperature-record-set-in-hobart-for-tasmania/10864696
Poor us !
Hello,
I know that arome model is available for some areas around the globe in addition to a part of Europe. Are the data source different for those areas? It is possible for Windy to use and display data for these areas ?
Is that the one also called "morning glory cloud" ?
Hi everybody!
I love this website and use it for VFR flight planning and windsurfing. I live in Sint-Maarten and I like it to see possible hurricane evolution as well. I was wondering if you use modified colors on your layers? The original setting is great, but some people may like to change the scale and colors, for exemple to have a more accurate map for a specific range of wind speeds. Some others probably do it just for fun? I think it would be interesting to compare our settings... Yeah it's my day off today and I'm a bit bored. Ahaha ;) Here is my current color setting and the code (wind in knots) for the wind and gust layers.
[[0,[255,255,255,256]],
[10.309278350515463,[0,0,0,255]],
[20.618556701030926,[0,210,255,174]],
[30.92783505154639,[255,1,244,162]]]
Share yours !
Cheers, Gabriel
+1 isohypses
+1 dashed lines every 5Hpa (with custom on/off)
Add custom colors to that ? and custom text height ? :)
Very good job guys.
I'm in sint-maarten. Everything is destroyed here because of hurricane Irma. It's so sad. I lost my appartment... But I'm still found of meteorology.
Add a button like the new "pressure button" to switch to UTC Time / Local time based on your position.
May be it's not the most important thing to do but ... Add an hurricane layer showing current storm positions and names, previous track with intensities, and NHC official forecasted track + few relevant model tracks, intensity and wind radius. I know that a good programmer can do that working all automated, as raw data is available for free (god bless america). It might even be possible to add the HWRF model for those storms, as it's the most accurate model for hurricane wind prediction today (not for the track)... With the awesome windy graphic style that could be a very nice feature. I tried to do that few years ago but my programmer skills are too bad. I have a ton of websites for raw data or automated websites to show you some exemples.
Hello,
So nice, I was thinking of the implementation of lightning data along with radar map... And the day after it was operational.
As usual the result is incredibly nice. What you've done with the depiction of lightning strikes is awesome and I think this layer the best graphic result on the app!
The cc and cg lightning differenciation would definitely be a nice feature for "advanced users" as intracloud or cc lightnings happen generally in mature or decaying thunderstorms. I think some website provide this info but I'm not sure that it's free though. But it's a small detail for most people here I think.
Congrats guys !!!
(A320 pilot, climber and sailor here, and BIG FAN of this app)
Hi,
Look here :
https://community.windy.com/topic/3361/description-of-weather-overlays
It is also easy to find out for each layer. If you click on the map it will display the unit used for that particular layer. In your case, it's Cloud cover in percent. 0% is a brown area : sky is clear. In a grey area, the sky is overcast, entirely covered by clouds so it's 100%. Then if you drag the cursor on thoses crosshatched areas, it will display an other information with a new unit : rain/snow accumulation for 3 hours in millimeters (mm). It means that those areas are covered by clouds and moreover, it's likely to rain or snow there.
Arome !
And it's not covering only Europe but also Antilles (Caribbean), a part of the indian Ocean including reunion island and Madagascar , and also new Caledonia.