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    Best posts made by ivo

    • Windy version 14 brings sharper map and better colors

      _center_shadow

      A sharper map and new beautiful colors – this is the main innovation of the new Windy version 14.00.

      But not only that.

      We bring you the new layer Precipitation type, and two pure experimental layers Fog and Thunderstorms from the ICON GLOBAL model.

      Let us know what you think about these data.

      Enjoy!

      Ivo and the Windy team

      _center_shadow

      posted in Announcements
      ivo
    • Help us to test new Weather Radar overlay

      As we are continuously improving Windy, we’ve never stopped thinking to create – and expand – the 'Weather Radar' feature. However, this service is depended on various data providers, and each country has a different policy regarding the management of these data (see https://on.windy.com/RadarDataGathering).

      So far, our radar layer has been covering the USA (including Hawaii and coastal parts of Alaska), South Korea and a couple of islands in the North Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean.

      After a period of hard work, now we are excited to announce that the long-anticipated Weather radar for a large part of Europe is out! Radar is covering the area from Spain to Finland (see this table). We are gathering radar data for other countries and we will be adding them slowly but surely.

      Check this most beautiful composite:

      _center_shadow


      Shortened version of this link: https://on.windy.com/WeatherRadarTesting


      Blog post: https://blog.windy.com/help-us-test-our-new-weather-radar-overlay


      posted in Announcements
      ivo
    • New mobile version is here, how do you like it?

      Update: After a lot of complaints, Weather Picker on single click is BACK.

      • We are launching a new version of mobile/tablet version of Windy - which attempts to solve a lot of complaints we've received so far. The mobile version of Windy was considered complicated and difficult to navigate. Some people even claimed it unusable on a small display. A minimalistic and simplistic version should solve this, including the fact that now there is more space for the weather map.

      • 100% of functionality of the previous version is included, but not only that: Now you can stop animated particles on your mobile (as requested).

      • To see the popular "weather picker", just long tap on a map.

      • You can change the altitude in the menu on the right side.

      _center

      We will be more than happy to hear your opinion.

      Ivo

      posted in Announcements
      ivo
    • About Windy

      Hi, my name is Ivo, and I love the wind!

      I am an addicted kiter, helicopter and jet pilot who seeks the wind, waves, METARs and powder snow almost constantly. Since programming is my passion, I coded Windyty.com in 2014 as my pet project. The original version was highly inspired by the products from the Swiss company Meteoblue and other project called "Earth", that displayed animated wind particles on the globe. I have completely rewrote open source codes of Earth and also made an agreement with Meteoblue to use some of their products that time. And thus Windyty was born (renamed to Windy a few years later). My goal is to keep Windy small and fast to be accessible in the most remote locations.

      In 2014 Windy was born, under its former name Windyty.

      In 2015 the Windy team grew to a few more programmers: Milan and Tomas. We use GFS and NEMS as the main forecast models.

      In 2016 we launched Android and iOS mobile Apps and we renamed Windyty to Windytv, which turned out to be a big mistake. As one of the few companies in the world, we have the use of the ECMWF forecast model, which is recognised as the most accurate model available.

      In 2017 our team grew to 5 people and we have changed the name to Windy with nice and short address www.windy.com. During hurricane season Windy become major source of weather information for governments, institutions and individuals in affected areas, virtually saving the lives.

      In 2018 we launched a new European weather radar, thunderstorm forecast and many other major innovations.

      Our goal is to provide the best weather forecasting service in the world.

      The original "launch" video from 2014:

      Contact: https://community.windy.com/topic/3339/how-to-contact-us

      Investor relations: Windy is a private company owned by its founder and employees.

      Note: Updated Sep 2018

      posted in Frequently Asked Questions
      ivo
    • Windy is the first weather service in the world to globally forecast thunderstorms

      We are proud to announce that we are now able to forecast Thunderstorms, which is a map layer created as a combination of Rain and Lightning density.

      Many efforts have resulted in lightning density forecast by ECMWF – which is very accurate. Kudos to all the guys in London and Reading who did a great job. Technical description is here.

      Enjoy the new Thunderstorm forecast and STAY SAFE!!!!

      _center_shadow


      Please help:

      This thunderstorm forecast can save lives, but we need to propagate it. If you are a journalist, please promote information about this service. Windy is free, without ads, and we just want to help others.


      Download a Press Release


      Blog post with more detailed info: https://blog.windy.com/new-global-lightning-forecast


      posted in Announcements
      ivo
    • Windy offers Sounding Forecast

      Air sounding, sounding forecast or skew diagram is here (there is plenty of names for it). So far we support only ecmwf but other models will be supported too. Just click with right mouse button on a map and use link in context menu (long tap on mobile will do).

      Developed by our soaring pilot & programmer @TZ so enjoy. And BTW works on mobile device too.

      _center_shadow

      posted in Announcements
      ivo
    • Windy offers new model ICON-EU with 7km grid resolution

      _center

      Our youngest programmer @dzuremar worked hard to bring you the new forecast model. And finally it is here.

      ICON-EU with a lot of overlays, isolines and even Meteogram.

      Enjoy, Ivo

      posted in Announcements
      ivo
    • Help us to test Windy version 13.00

      cover photo

      What brings Windy v13.00?

      New desktop user interface, that is less for experts and professionals and more for common users. All user controls should be more contrast and bigger. A lot of stuff inside the codes by introducing central data store (kind like faster and more simple Redux store), which are a little bit smaller, work a little bit faster and should be significantly more stable.

      Isolines are now much more faster (rendering was reduced from 1.5 seconds to 57ms) and require much less CPU and memory.

      If you spot a BUG please, please, please, send a screenshot and help us repair it.

      Ivo

      Detailed changelog is here: https://community.windy.com/topic/4518

      posted in Your Feedback and Suggestions
      ivo
    • Windy brings new Waves-radar and additional isolines

      Windy v12.33+ is here with some nice goodies.

      If you are a waverider, you will love our new wave-radar. Open the detailed wave forecast and you will see directions of wind, swell, swell1 and swell2 in one big picture. Of course, you can choose either ECMWF WAM or NOAA WWIII model.

      _center

      For meteorologists we have prepared additional isolines such as geopotential height, temperature and freezing altitude.

      _center

      The good news is that GH and temperature isolines are multilevel, the bad news is that these additional isolines are implemented for desktop only.

      Additional isolines can be selected in the Right-hand Overlay Menu.

      Ivo

      posted in Announcements
      ivo
    • Would you like to report your weather station data to Windy?

      _center_shadow

      Are you an owner of a personal weather station? Are you a maintainer of weather stations network?

      We plan to create API endpoints so you could send your weather station data to us. Please help us make this project by answering the following questions:

      1) What type of weather station do you have?

      2) Do you report your data to some other Internet website?

      3) How do you technically send your reports to this other website? Which software or protocol do you use?

      4) Do you have any tips and ideas on how our API reporting should look like?

      5) Would you be willing to offer your station data to anyone else (not only windy.com) as open data?

      posted in General Discussion
      ivo
    • Real-time lightning strikes on Windy.com

      A few months ago, Windy became a contributor to the great community project www.blitzortung.org

      Imagine weather fans who buy and install their own lightning detector, just to create a free creative commons map of real-time lightning strikes.

      And now, the strikes are on! They are just on the web version for now; but iOS and Android apps will follow soon.

      _center_shadow

      So enjoy the new feature!

      Ivo


      P.S. Blitzortung is currently looking for new contributors in Africa to improve the coverage and data quality.


      Blog post with more detailed info: https://blog.windy.com/real-time-lightning-strikes


      posted in Announcements
      ivo
    • Pressure isolines are here

      _center

      We agree that you have waited very long for this feature. But now you have it.

      Worldwide pressure isolines for ECMWF, GFS, NAM and other potential models.

      We have developed isolines in such a way that they will consume only minimum amount of you bandwidth and CPU.

      Enjoy!

      Tomas (back-end) and Ivo (front-end)

      _center

      posted in Announcements
      ivo
    • Windy launches "Observation vs. Forecast"

      _center_shadow

      Have you tried to figure out which forecast model is the best for a given location? Not a problem anymore with our new feature: Observation vs. forecast!

      Easy to use graph overlays with observed data from 30.000+ weather stations we monitor, with forecast from all the models we use: ECMWF, GFS, NEMS, ICON-EU, AROME, NAM.

      We believe that this new feature will help you make your weather-related decisions even better than before.

      And how to launch this new feature? It is easy, just open your favourite weather station and there you are!

      But not only that. Now you can even:

      • Store any weather station as your favourite by clicking on symbol "♥︎".
      • Search any weather station by keyword. Try "11518" for wmo station in Prague.

      Enjoy and stay safe!

      posted in Announcements
      ivo
    • Display all times in UTC

      Pilots, boaters, scientiscts will love this. Go to Settings ans set Windy to so called "zuluMode" do display all times in UTC.

      This works on www.windy.com for now, iOS and Android apps will be updated soon

      Note: This is long requested feature, which I was scared to implement (because of its complexity). It turned out that I have developed this in one day.

      Enjoy , Ivo

      _center_shadow

      posted in Announcements
      ivo
    • Description of weather overlays

      Radar, lightning: This overlay is a combination of these two parts: 1. weather radar and 2. real-time lightning strikes. Please note, although the radar and the lightning radiolocation are both integrated into one overlay, they work independently of each other; they have different data sources and a slightly different map coverage. However, on this feature, they share the timeline occurrence; you can display them together as an animation in the time course of 12 hours to 5 mins back in the past.

      1. Reflectivity measured with a doppler radar, indicating actual rain/snow/hail or amount of preticable water in clouds.
        Weather radar, also called Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type (rain, snow, hail etc.) or amount of predictable water in clouds. Returned echoes from targets ("reflectivity") are analyzed for their intensities to establish the precipitation rate in the scanned volume.

      2. We are getting the real-time lightning data from a database called Blitzortnung. It is a great community project that Windy has become a contributor to some time ago. It is created by weather fans who buy and install their own lightning detectors, and build a free creative commons map of real-time lightning strikes. These have been integrated just on the web version so far; but iOS and Android apps will follow soon.

        For more info, please read: https://blog.windy.com/real-time-lightning-strikes

      Wind: Average wind speed 10 meters above the surface (or at a selected pressure level). Actual wind at the ground is influenced by many factors like mountains, cities, convective clouds and thermal effects.

      Wind gusts: Wind gusts 10 meters above the surface in the last 3 hours. Actual wind at the ground is influenced by so many factors like mountains, cities and thermal effects. ECMWF model has a different method of Wind gusts computation, resulting in higher values than other models.

      Wind accumulation: This overlay represents the maximum intensity projection of wind gusts over the next 10 days. Basically, each point on the map represents the strongest or maximum wind forecasted for that place in the next 10 days. This feature is especially helpful for tracking hurricanes and other strong wind events.
      For more info, please read: https://blog.windy.com/wind-accumulation

      Rain, thunder: Rain/snow accumulation in the last 3 hours, combined with lightning density forecast.
      For more info, please read: https://blog.windy.com/new-global-lightning-forecast

      Rain accumulation: Total rain accumulation in the next hours or days. It's being deduced from the reference time (see 'About these data' section in the Quick Settings Menu).

      New snow: Total snow accumulation in the next hours or days. To estimate the depth of snow, we use the ratio: 1mm of rain = 1cm of snow.

      Snow depth: Forecasted depth and density of snow in the next days. Actual snow depth will be influenced by many factors like orography, cities and so on.

      Precipitation type: Precipitation types can include the character or phase of the precipitation which is falling to the ground level. Precipitation can fall in either liquid or solid phases, or transition between them. Rain, Freezing rain, Mixed ice, Snow, Wet snow, Rain with snow, Ice pellets.
      More detailed info: https://community.windy.com/topic/5444/precipitation-type-newly-added

      Thunderstorms: Defined as a number of lighting flashes in the area of one square kilometer, in one day.

      Temperature: Temperature 2m above the surface (or at a selected pressure level). The actual temperature is influenced by many factors like mountains, convective clouds and cities.

      Dew point: Temperature at 2m above the surface (or at a selected pressure level) at which a water vapour in the air will form dew. It is a measure of atmospheric moisture.

      Humidity: Relative humidity 2m above the surface (or at a selected pressure level).

      Freezing altitude: The freezing level, or 0 °C (zero-degree) isotherm, represents the altitude in which the temperature is at 0 °C (the freezing point of water).

      Clouds: Clouds and rain/snow accumulation in the last 3 hours. Please note that rain from convective clouds can not be included in this value, therefore we advise you to observe the CAPE index.

      High clouds: High clouds is cloud coverage at an altitude between circa 6500m and the cloud tops. Cloud cover is given in percent.

      Medium clouds: Medium clouds is cloud coverage at an altitude between circa 2000m and circa 6500m. Cloud cover is given in percent.

      Low clouds: Low clouds is cloud coverage at an altitude between the surface and circa 2000m. Cloud cover is given in percent.

      Fog: Fog is a visible aerosol consisting of minute water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. Fog is heavily influenced by nearby bodies of water, topography, and wind conditions.

      Cloud tops: 'Cloud tops height is the altitude of the cloud peak.

      Cloud base: Cloud base height is the altitude of the lowest cloud base above the ground, especially important for pilots. The model of terrain is simplified, so be cautious to use these values in the mountains. On large areas, the forecast model is not able to calculate the cloud base.

      Visibility: Visibility is a measure of the distance at which an object or light can be clearly discerned. Meteorological visibility refers to transparency of air: in dark, meteorological visibility is still the same as in daylight for the same air.

      CAPE index: Convective available potential energy represents the potential energy of the atmosphere and can be the indicator of forming convective clouds and storms. Values from 1000 to 2000 can indicate forming of moderate thunderstorms, and over 2000 severe ones.

      Waves: Significant wave height and its period of all wave types combined (swell and wind waves). Close to the shoreline, the actual height is influenced by the shape of the sea bottom.

      Swell1: A swell consists of wind-generated mechanical waves that are not significantly affected by the local wind at that time. They have been generated elsewhere and some time ago, usually travelling long distances.

      Swell2: Secondary swell is produced also by winds far away but in other places than Swell1. It has different heights, directions and periods than Swell1.

      Swell3: Another secondary swell, with different heights, directions and periods than Swell1 and Swell2. More detailed info about the swells is here.

      Wind waves: Wind waves, or wind-generated waves, are surface waves that occur on the free surface of bodies of water (like oceans, seas, lakes, etc.). They result from the wind blowing over an area of water surface. Wind waves are generated by the immediate local wind – which gives them the direction. After the wind ceases to blow, wind waves are called swells.

      Sea temperature: Sea surface temperature as estimated for actual time. Close to the shoreline, the actual value is influenced by the shape of the shoreline and the sea bottom, and also by wind and waves.

      Currents: Surface sea currents as estimated for actual time. Close to the shoreline, the actual value is influenced by the shape of shoreline and sea bottom. Also, actual surface sea currents can be influenced by the wind.

      CO concentration: Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that is slightly less dense than air. The level of CO concentration in the troposphere is measured by a system called Parts Per Billion by Volume (PPBV).

      Dust mass: Dust generally consists of particles in the atmosphere that come from various sources such as soil, dust lifted by weather, volcanic eruptions, and air pollution. The level of dust concentration is given in micrograms (one-millionth of a gram) per cubic meter of air, or µg/m3.

      So2sm: Sulfur dioxide is a toxic gas with a burnt, match smell. It is released naturally by volcanic activity and is produced as a by-product of the burning of fossil fuels contaminated with sulfur compounds. The level of SO2 concentration is given in micrograms (one-millionth of a gram) per cubic meter of air, or µg/m3.

      Ozone layer: Total column of Ozone is a factor that influences the amount of dangerous UV radiation coming to the surface. Measured in Dobson units. Higher values represent more ozone and less UV radiation.

      Pressure: The mean sea-level pressure (MSLP) is the average atmospheric pressure at sea level. Atmospheric pressure, sometimes also called barometric pressure, is the pressure within the atmosphere of Earth (or that of another planet). In most circumstances atmospheric pressure is closely approximated by the hydrostatic pressure caused by the weight of air above the measurement point.

      Weather warnings: Weather warnings are issued by national weather agencies in a form of "CAP alerts". (More detailed info coming soon.)

      posted in Frequently Asked Questions
      ivo
    • Tide Forecast on Windy

      @kekert is a snowkiter and has never been on a sailing boat, but as a mathematician he gathered some harmonics files, and so tide forecast on Windy is now a reality.

      Tides are implemented as points on the map, so just click on the boat icon and there you are!

      We have tides only for the USA, some parts of the Caribbean, Netherlands, the UK, Australia, NZ, Japan and Canada and some other locations.

      The icon symbol is the actual tide forecast for the given time – so move the timeline and magic will happen!

      To open a tide station, just click on the boat icon:

      _left

      _left


      BEWARE: Tides can be forecasted only at certain tide stations (where measurement has been made). Some fraudulent mobile apps try to convince you that there is some universal formula to forecast tides for any location. They are liars.


      Tide stations wanted! We would love to increase the number of tide stations on Windy. There is a project to create free creative commons database of harmonic files. Details here: https://community.windy.com/topic/4893/contributors-wanted-2-creative-commons-database-for-free-tide-forecast


      A picture of @kekert:

      _center_shadow


      Blog post: https://blog.windy.com/tide-forecast-on-windy


      posted in Announcements
      ivo
    • Which model should Windy implement next? Please vote.

      Our backend guru @dzuremar finished one big task and he is eager to do some new programming action.

      Please let us know, which forecast we should implement next

      Vote number 1: HIRLAM approx 7.5km resolution, covers mostly Scandinavia

      https://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/open-data-on-aws-s3

      _center_shadow

      Vote number 2: AROME approx 2km resolution, covers Western Europe

      https://www.umr-cnrm.fr/spip.php?article120&lang=en

      _center_shadow

      Vote number 3: HRRR approx 3km resolution, covers Continental USA

      https://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/

      _center_shadow

      Let us know here in this discussion thread

      posted in Your Feedback and Suggestions
      ivo
    • Windy is experimenting with CAP Alerts (weather warnings)

      Windy started to display the so called CAP Alerts as a new layer "Weather warnings".

      Unfortunately it covers only some areas like Europe, US, Russie etc

      _center_shadow

      A lot of backend work was done by @kekert, a long time Windy friend and now our team member.

      All your suggestions will be considered in this thread, or you can use the already running discussion: https://community.windy.com/topic/7086/weather-warnings-new-layer

      Enjoy!

      posted in Announcements
      ivo
    • RE: Windy version 14 brings sharper map and better colors

      In 1 - 2 weeks

      posted in Announcements
      ivo
    • RE: Please don't sell out...it's just to good.

      Do not worry. I am the keeper.

      And BTW thx for your words.

      posted in General Discussion
      ivo