Windy Community

Ken

It would be great if we could set up an alert for when forecast lightning flash density or CAPE exceeds a certain value of our choosing at a location.

I’d imagine it wouldn’t take too much time to add this capability since it would just be using the same technique as the existing alerts we already use for other parameters such as wind speed, temperature, etc…. except it would just sample the gridpoint value of forecast lightning flash density or CAPE.

Even better would be if such an alert could be triggered when a combination of both lightning (or CAPE) and 500hpa wind speeds (a proxy for shear) exceeds a certain threshold. This could provide a useful heads up on the potential for severe thunderstorms.

Ken

@Ondřej-Šutera Ah thanks very much for that! The sounding option doesn't appear for me at first unless I scroll to the right in that section so that's why I didn't see it at first.

Ken

Adding precipitation types such as rain vs snow vs freezing rain (perhaps using colour-coding) to work out where snow would be more likely than rain would be great!

Ken

@korina oh and sorry, one more suggestion before I forget. Not sure if this deserves a separate thread but it would also be extremely useful if there was an optional setting where alerts extend out to 7 or 10 days.

I know accuracy is lower at that type of range but if it was available as an option that could be turned on or off by premium or more advanced users (while keeping the default alerts to 5 days unless the user forces a change) and adding a disclaimer that skill will be lower, I think it would be a great addition.

Ken

Not sure whether this is a bug or it's been intentionally left out but I'll post this question in here just in case it is a bug.

Just wondering where has the ability to long-press on any point on the map to view a model forecast sounding gone after the latest UI update to the app?

Ken

@Korina thanks very much 😁

Ken

@idefix37 I think you'll always get those types of people anyway, regardless of how short or long range a forecast is from a model. One of the more classic examples involving thunderstorms and CAPE fields, or localised precipitation on Day 8 from any model.

I think the important part is to add some sort of prominent disclaimer like the one I mentioned in my previous reply cautioning people about that in order to reduce that perception. That's just my view though.

Ken

@idefix37 yes I'm well aware of that but as I mentioned in my post, no models are immune to the significant drop-off in useful skill beyond about the Day 5 to 7 mark. GFS just tends to suffer that more than say ECMWF.

Despite this, Windy and many other sites still display ECMWF data out to 10 days to provide a general indication of what may happen. Therefore, I think it should still be an option available to those who are interested (but perhaps with a prominent disclaimer displayed that emphasises the much greater uncertainty at that range for people who may not be aware).

Anyway, just a suggestion that's all. Probably belongs in the "nice to have" category rather than being something essential.

Ken

@Ondřej-Šutera thanks for that. Yes I think it'd be a really handy feature to have since I think there are often times that many people want to see how much rainfall is forecast to fall today, tomorrow, the day after, etc.

And a 24 hour max lightning feature would also act as an extremely useful thunderstorm map for today, tomorrow, etc. I think you already use this technique for your wind accumulation option - if so, you could just use the same coding (but for lightning instead) without having to reinvent the wheel.

Ken

Just wondering why the no-labels npm package was removed from the list of packages that we could load plugins from?

I noticed shortly before it disappeared that a message came up saying it wasn't authorised.

But it used to be the only way to be able to prevent Windy from displaying forecast temperatures under location names when wanting to view a parameter that didn't have anything to do with temperatures.
In fact, I've seen many people comment that the display of those forecast temperatures on maps such as 10-day rainfall accumulations were confusing because they didn't know when those temperatures were valid for.

Can you please implement the option to be able to toggle the display of those temperatures on and off?

Ken