UPDATED September 2021

Did you know that you can customize Windy colors for almost any layer? What is the point of doing it? You may prefer your own color palette, but also, by this way, you can deal with some specific requirement.

For example, it may be helpful to visualize a particular level of temperature from which you consider that it may hurt people and your environment. By using a particular color you will be alerted just by looking at the map.

If you are fan of boating, you may use a color like red - the usual sign of danger - when the wind reaches a certain force. And as everyone does not have the same threshold of danger for outdoor activities, it is better to set the threshold by yourself. In the example below the red color was used from 28 knots of wind, i.e. 7 Beaufort which is an usual warning level for a coastal cruiser boat.

Details are shown here.

But there are other reasons, such as the case of a Windy user who is green blind. It was better for him to replace this color with another one.

How to change a layer color scale?

This change can only be made via the website windy.com, not in the phone app, and you need to be logged in. But when the change has been made on desktop, it will automatically be applied also to the phone app.
EDIT : now It can be done directly in the tablet app too.

Go to Settings and choose Customize Color Scale. Select the layer you want to edit.

You may want to customize the Waves layer. If you are fond of paddling on the seashore or if you are an oceanic sailor, you will not consider the same scale for waves height.

Selecting the Waves layer you get this table:

In the first column, you can change the steps of the scale and/or, in the second column, the colors.

You know that colors on your screen is a mix of 3 base colors: Red, Green, Blue, which are specified by the RGB code with 3 numbers as you see in the second column like rgb (192,51,95)

How to modify the RGB code

When you click a color line you open a small window which allow you to change the hue (1) and the density/brightness (2).

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When you are satisfied with your colors, click Save. At any time you can switch back to the Windy default settings by clicking Load defaults

And for example you can get this type of colors scale for waves:

If you want to obtain directly this color scale just look at this thread in Windy community:

• Waves colours

Large commercial vessels use poorly refined heavy fuel containing sulfur compounds. These boats release large amounts of sulfur dioxide SO2 which is a source of acidification for the environments (oceans, forests ...). Due to local regulations on the US coasts, the Baltic Sea, the North Sea and the English Channel, these vessels must switch locally to a more refined fuel with a limited content of sulfur compounds, similar to the diesel fuel. Elsewhere they can use this heavy fuel, even in the Mediterranean where there is a lot of traffic.

In addition to SO2, these ships produce a lot of nitrogen oxides, such as NO2, to the point that coastal areas may become highly polluted areas. One can imagine pollution in cities with car traffic or near certain industrial sites. But at sea, people think that the air is clean, which is not the case everywhere.

The Windy maps that present these pollutants, SO2 and recently NO2, speak for themselves: they make it possible to highlight and monitor this pollution along the trade routes of the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean ... The comparison of these traces of pollutants at sea with the main shipping routes shows an obvious correlation.

However, these big boats remain the least expensive and even the least polluting means per ton of freight transported. If it were necessary to transport the same quantities of goods by truck, plane or even diesel train, the pollution would be worse!

@korina
Wow, amazing view of the planet weather ! So exciting to find 3D back again !
And very useful for polar views and for an overall vision of baroclinic zones.

The dust of the Sahara desert raised by the wind can cross the oceans. Using NASA satellite imagery, scientists have shown that this transport by upper tradewinds reaches the Amazon basin and contributes to the supply of nutrients to the Amazon rainforest. Part of this dust comes from the Bodélé depression, which is an ancient lake that covered part of Chad at the time when the Sahara was green, several thousand years ago. It has disappeared, and the current Lake Chad is somehow a remnant.

The bottom of the Bodélé depression, located approximately 17°N and 17°E, is rich in dust from the microorganisms that lived in this ancient lake. This region, between the mountains of Tibesti and Ennedi, experiences violent local winds in winter that lift clouds of dust.

The transport of this particular dust is a source of nutrients needed by plants especially phosphorus, but also potassium, soluble iron... Thus the largest desert feeds the largest rainforest in the world.

This dust from the Sahara can also reach the Amazon rain forest, the Caribbean zone and even the southern part of United States.

In spring and summer, SW currents frequently bring mineral dust from central Sahara to Western Europe. The early spring that we know this year in this part of Europe because of the blocked high pressure is causing a rise in temperatures and the transport of dust from the Sahara as shown by this map from Windy. The southern flow on the west flank of the anticyclonic ridge carries this dust over Spain, the west of France, Great Britain and Ireland, up to Norway.

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-how-much-saharan-dust-feeds-amazon-s-plants

https://www.windy.com/annotation/5ca33262ade88d001cd025d5

@ivo
Vote 2: AROME

AROME is available as free data. Very interesting along coastline, in mountain zone and for local forecasts (thunderstorms, large towns effect...)

Cover image: Sea near Marseille when Mistral blows

Next Sunday, May 5, all models predict a storm at sea, or at least a strong gale weather, with average winds reaching 9 Bf (40kt, 75 km/h) and gusts of more than 75kt (130km/h). This type of storm is quite common in this region and it is linked to typical conditions that cause these violent winds.

The French coast of the Mediterranean Sea is surrounded by mountains that change the speed and direction of the winds when high pressures are established on the near Atlantic. The northwesterly flow at ground level is deflected by 3 mountains, the Alps, the Massif Central and the Pyrenees.

The Mistral blows in the narrow valley of the Rhone down to the coast, in Provence and in Languedoc. It is a strong and gusty wind, usually cold, which is feared in the summer for the risk of forest fires.

Northwestern Tramontane causes sudden storms in the Gulf of Lion.
Both are accelerated by the upper flow crossing the mountains with a foehn effect providing gusting conditions and a typical blue sky.

In addition to the pressure gradient, a dynamic low in the Gulf of Genoa results from the divergent upper flow after the passage over the Alps. This depression in the Ligurian Sea can move and it is its position that actually controls the direction of the winds at sea, between Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearic Islands.
 At sea, sailors generally fear deep depressions, but in this region, with high pressures settling in the west or the north of France and resulting in mistral or tramontane storms, mariners rather watch the anticyclones!

@robbrooks33
Fronts are NOT drawn by numerical weather forecast models, but by skill weather forecast meteorologists.
As Windy shows maps directly issued from weather forecast models, there is no way to show fronts automatically.

Moreover, what does the drawing of the fronts bring? The position of the air masses? The changes of direction, and the eventual strengthening, of the wind? The type of weather, cloud systems, precipitation? All of this you find it in detail on Windy. The fronts were imagined in the 1930s, at the time when this synthetic and graphic presentation allowed a simplified representation of current and forecasted weather. Today's weather models provide much more detailed forecasts, even if they are not able to offer plotting of fronts.
Personally, I use to look at Temperature layer at 850hPa which gives a rough idea of the location of the different fronts...

@ivo
Great idea to mix the layer of rain and lightning

@korina
Here are the weather models which are run by JMA, the Japan Meteorological Agency:
https://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/Activities/nwp.html
Seems the LFM model should be a suitable one.

@ivo
I’ve just changed the colors of this layer, considering White for 0°C.
Then I have kept the default colors for positive temperatures, except for the highest. I have replaced the Black by White, because I keep the image of a piece of steel that you heat. It takes successively these colors: Red-brown, red, light red and finally white, with no risk for me to confuse with the 0°C color.
For the negative colors I have changed the default colors too. There are OK near the ground but in high altitude e.g. at 500hPa, I would like more color changes. Just need to work on it.

@milooz
There is a plugin available on desktop:
https://community.windy.com/topic/17143/windy-plugin-rnc-rnc-nautical-charts?_=1652884650679
But it shows only the navigation marks and it is not suitable as navigation software.

@giancarlo-abba

These are the areas that have been hit by lightning. Look where the lightning struck during the loop, this corresponds to the « burned » area

@royce55
It works also on the ‘large screens’ of tablet or desktop. The difference is the way to change the time and map: on the phone app you click on the forecast panel, on ‘large screen’ you need to click the timeline itself.

@steve-o7
Yes, wind forecast can be different from reported wind at a weather station. One is prediction by a weather model, the other is observation.
Same for temperature and all weather parameters.

@mayq36qi

Interesting, but at sea surface you ignore the winds below 40 knots !

@pedro-ozelim
For rain forecast, select:
Rain, thunder
Rain accumulation

And for the current rain:
Weather radar

Para previsão de chuva, selecione:
Chuva, trovão
Acumulação de chuva

E para a chuva atual:
Radar meteorológico

@aung-min-tun-0
Why do post that in this thread?

@enjoycrete
From zoom level 12, the overlays disappear because there is no point to show them. Remember the ECMWF model has a resolution of 9km i.e. the data is provided at grid points showing 9km between each, then colors are interpolated.
BTW the weather picker at high zoom level is still active and it gives you a very local forecast.

@squshy
You don’t give detail about your location, no screenshot. Seriously how can you imagine that someone explains the discrepancy between your observation and what you get from Windy?

@sbeare
When you look at a map, the timeline is your local time. In Settings you can decide to add also UTC (zulu).
If you select a location with the weather picker far from your location (out of your time zone) then the time line is displayed according to the time zone of the picker.
As shown here:
https://community.windy.com/topic/14821/which-time-zone?_=1652598344874
In this example you see UTC stays unchanged when local time varies with time zone.