Best posts made by Korina

Update: 5th of September, 11:00 p.m. UTC

Typhoon Hinnamnor made landfall on the southern coast, near the city of Geoje early Tuesday as Category 2 severe tropical storm causing flooding due to excessive rainfall and power outages.

Track the Hinnamnor typhoon directly on Windy with Hurricane Tracker LIVE ➡️ https://bit.ly/Hinnamnor-Windy

Hundreds of flights are grounded as the typhoon moves away from the Korean peninsula and weakens.

The maximum sustained winds are now 169 km/h strong, the storm continues to bring heavy rainfall and gusty winds.

Update: 5th of September, 8:00 a.m. UTC

The Category 3 typhoon Hinnamnor is expected to approach the Kyushu region in western Japan from Monday evening through Tuesday morning while traveling northward over the East China Sea toward South Korea.

The typhoon is traveling at 25 km per hour with maximum sustained winds of 193 km/h and gusts of 240 km/h.

Hinnamnor is forecast to hit South Korea as Category 2 typhoon early Tuesday.

Threats

Rough seas with violent winds and heavy rainfall will come to northern and southern Kyushu. In the upcoming 24-hour period, the rainfall can reach 300 millimeters.

Warnings have been issued for high waves that could reach up to 12 meters in northern Kyushu and 10 meters in southern Kyushu. Landslides and flooding in low-lying areas may occur too.

Update: 4th of September, 11:00 a.m. UTC

The Hinnamnor typhoon starting to accelerate through the East China Sea now as a Category 3 storm.

Landfall is estimated to be near Busan in South Korea on Tuesday in the early morning hours. It is also expected to be one of the strongest storms to ever hit the country.

The slow-moving typhoon is moving with maximum sustained winds of 195 km/h. Eastern China and Japan are already preparing for the typhoon's impacts by suspending ferry services and flights on Sunday.

Update: 4th of September, 01:00 a.m. UTC`

Hinnamnor (now Ex-HENRY) has reintensified into a Category 2 strong typhoon. The maximum sustained winds are 169 km/h and gusts around 210 km/h.

The typhoon is expected to head north to South Korea and hit Jeju Island and Busan with life-threatening conditions.

Before arriving in the Korean Peninsula, it will also impact the South West Japan and China with devastating storm surges as the massive system progresses, starting from Sunday night to Tuesday.

Update: 3rd of September, 05:00 a.m. UTC

Tropical typhoon Hinnamnor (locally Henry) maintained the strength of a Category 1 storm in the last 24 hours with winds of 145 km/h.

It is now moving north at 12 kilometers per hour and bringing heavy to moderate rain to Metro Manila - Batanes, and Babuyan Islands; these conditions should prevail for most of Saturday.

Many other areas are affected by the enhanced southwest monsoon.

The typhoon is expected to intensify back into at least category 2 intensity before impacting South Korea and Japan and gradually weakening. Landfall on the Korea Peninsula is predicted for Tuesday.

Update: 2nd of September, 01:00 p.m. UTC

Typhoon Hinnamnor (Henry) has further weakened into Category 1 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale during its stationary phase over the Philippine Sea. Maximum winds are 145 km/h.

It is heading toward the Korean Peninsula and Japan now while affecting the Philippines with severe storm surges, causing flooding. No injuries have been reported so far.

Going into the weekend, Hinnamnor can significantly re-strengthen and become a Category 3 typhoon before making landfall in South Korea on Tuesday next week.

The typhoon will approach Okinawa on Sunday and bring destructive winds with the power to destroy homes.

Update: 1st of September, 11:00 p.m. UTC

Hinnamnor (Henry) downgraded to Category 4 on early Friday, local time, with maximum sustained winds of 209 km/h and gusts around 278 km/h. It remains a very dangerous typhoon despite the downgrade.

The typhoon is almost stationary over the Philippine Sea as of now and is expected to remain like that during the Friday morning and then slowly head northwest in the afternoon.

Besides heavy rain, the typhoon will affect northern Luzon with strong winds; warnings have been issued for Batanes, Babuyan Islands, and northeastern part of mainland Cagayan (Santa Ana).

Update: 1st of September, 08:00 a.m. UTC

Hinnamnor (Henry) remains a powerful typhoon, currently peaking at Category 5 super typhoon status with maximum sustained winds of 257 km/h and gusts of about 313 km/h.

Meandering in the East China Sea, the storm has absorbed a tropical depression, locally named GardoPH, and completed an eyewall replacement cycle.

The storm is headed southward of Ryukyu Islands, where it is expected to make a re-approach, then move away to the south and gain force.

Hinnamnor will not make landfall in the Philippines, but will affect Northern Luzon with light to moderate rain, with at times heavy rain, in Batanes.

Heavy rainfall causing severe flooding and destructive winds will impact the Korean Peninsula later this week starting Sunday till Tuesday. It can also cause waves up to 15 meters high in the sea.

Residents should stay on high alert for gale-force winds and high waves. Gale Advisory is in effect for Ishigaki, Yonaguni, Daito, and Okinawa Islands.

Update: 31st of August, 08:00 p.m. UTC

Hinnamnor has entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) as a Category 4 typhoon and has been given a local name Henry. Further strengthening to Category 5 may happen.

On Thursday local time, the typhoon reportedly had sustained winds of 185 km/h and estimated gusts of 265 km/h. As it moves across the South China Sea, Hinnamnor threatens the southern islands of Japan, Taiwan and China’s east coast.

Strong winds, very strong rainfall, and extensive flooding remain serious threats.

Typhoon will most likely also enhance the currently ongoing tropical depression (locally referred to as GardoPH), bringing monsoon rains to western Luzon from Friday.

Update: 31st of August, 07:00 a.m. UTC

Super typhoon Hinnamnor is currently packing sustained winds of nearly 185 km/h with gusts of 275 km/h maintaining its Category 4 typhoon status, which makes it the strongest storm of the year so far with a well-defined eye.

Hinnamnor is heading west to the East China Sea while threatening the southern Japan islands, China’s east coast, and the Philippines.

Currently, the storm is positioned approximately 230 km east of Japan’s Okinawa and is expected to move west-southwest towards the Ryukyu Islands at a speed of 22km/h.

Violent winds, strong rainfall, and high waves of about 50 feet (15 meters) are expected to hit the region. Rainfall of about 180 millimeters in Okinawa is forecasted between Wednesday and Thursday. Severe conditions may cause houses to collapse.

Residents in the affected areas are urged to seek shelter when the conditions become too dangerous.

Update: 30th of August, 01:00 p.m. UTC

Typhoon Hinnamnor in the Western Pacific has rapidly strengthened in the last 24 hours. It has reached a Category 4 equivalent, making it a super typhoon with winds reaching up to 185 km/h (100 kts). Intensification to Category 5 is expected.

Hinnamnor is currently located south of Japan, advancing west over the seas to the south of Japan at 35 km/h.

According to the latest forecast, the typhoon may come close to the Okinawa prefecture and Amami region on Wednesday and have the power to destroy homes, especially in the Daitojima region in Okinawa Prefecture.

Threats

Typhoon Hinnamnor may have the strength to topple homes. Residents should be on high alert for very strong winds, mudslides, high waves, and flooding of low-lying areas.

Hinnamnor can also bring rough seas over the northern and eastern Luzon, Philippines starting Thursday or early Friday.

https://www.windy.com/-Satellite-satellite?satellite,24.295,118.276,5,internal

With the latest update, three new temperature layers arrive on Windy.com - Wet-bulb temperature, UV Index, and Solar Power.

Let's look at each layer and how you can utilize it!

Wet-bulb temperature

This year's heat has been record-breaking across many places on the planet, such as repeated heatwaves in India this Spring or more than 40C in the UK in July. So having accurate temperature data in such moments is extremely crucial.

But the temperature figures alone don't give a complete picture of the impact of heat on humans. So what is missing? It is the humidity that plays a significant role in how we actually experience high temperatures and how dangerous they are.

This is where the Wet-bulb temperature comes in, as it combines dry air temperature with humidity. It is a value indicating the lowest level of temperature that can be obtained through evaporative cooling of a water-wetted, ventilated surface. The wet-bulb temperature varies with the humidity levels; the more saturated the air is, the less evaporation will occur.

In essence, the WBT value means how well humans can cool themselves by sweating.

The WBT critical threshold is considered 35C, where we can no longer cool down our bodies by sweating. At this temperature, human bodies switch from shedding heat to the environment, to gaining heat from it.

The wet-bulb temperature is especially important for indoor environments, where deaths often occur during heatwaves, and no other factor like solar power or wind comes into effect.

Solar power

Solar Power is the amount of solar radiation (also known as shortwave radiation) that reaches a horizontal plane at the surface of the Earth. It can be characterized as solar irradiance (power per area at a given moment).

Solar radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation emitted by the sun, measured in watts per square metre (W/m2). On a clear day, the maximum surface value is approximately 1000 W/m2 at solar noon.

It is an essential renewable energy source, as it can be captured and turned into various forms of energy, including electricity using solar panels (PV).

With that said, the Solar power layer can be used to indicate how much energy can be produced during one day with a certain amount of resources, in this case, PV panels.

This parameter comprises both direct and diffuse solar radiation. To a reasonably good approximation, this parameter is the model equivalent of what would be measured by a pyranometer (an instrument used for measuring solar radiation) at the surface.

UV Index

UV Index is a measure of the level of UV radiation at a particular place and time. The UVI indicates the level of radiation and the danger of short-term and long-term exposure to the sun.

Most of us choose what to wear or where we will go based on a weather forecast. We can do the same with the UV Index forecast. The UVI provides valuable information about whether we should adopt protective measures when going outside to avoid health risks and injuries.

The values of UV radiation change throughout the day. The daily maximum UV levels occur during the four-hour period around solar noon (when the Sun passes a location's meridian).

UV index values meaning:

0 to 2 means low danger from the Sun's UV rays for the average person.
3 to 5 means moderate risk of harm from unprotected sun exposure.
6 to 7 means high risk of harm from unprotected sun exposure.
8 to 10 means very high risk of harm from unprotected sun exposure.
11 or more means extreme risk of harm from unprotected sun exposure.

How to access the new layers

The new layers are located under the Temperature category on both the desktop and the app. And are also available on the 3D Globe for Premium users (desktop only).

If you do not see them right away, open the "More layers.." option and select them from the layer list.

https://www.windy.com/-Wet-bulb-temp--wetbulbtemp?wetbulbtemp,38.461,-29.403,3,internal

With the big summer update 37.1.8, we are bringing a new Hurricane Tracker with a fresh design and a couple of features for the hurricane season of 2022, which is already in full swing.

The Hurricane Tracker feature has been redesigned to bring users a better experience while keeping up with the latest severe and extreme tropical systems such as cyclones, hurricanes, or tropical storms around the globe, along with a storm track forecast and LIVE imagery, packed in an interactive user interface.

Multimodel forecast & LIVE satellite visualization

Hurricane Tracker newly displays a cone of the storm center showing a predicted movement path with a forecast track line from multiple national meteorological agencies. This can be used with Windy's Satellite layer (Visible, BLUE, INFRA+) to get a unique overview combining forecast movement and LIVE satellite imagery of a particular tropical storm or system.

Aside from the LIVE satellite visualization, you can use the Hurricane Tracker with any layer and forecast model on Windy.com, based on your preferences.

Each forecast track line has waypoints containing information about a storm's position and details about wind speed, pressure, and date/time the data are valid.

The logic behind displaying active storms has also been updated; newly, you will always be presented with a storm that is the closest to your current relative location or the location you have as your default.

You can toggle between available track forecast cones with a switch under each active storm. Examples are shown on the screenshot above, NOAA-EP, and ECMWF forecasts.

Our sources for storm track forecast are:

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

• NOAA AT
• NOAA EP
• NOAA CP

Japan Meteorological Agency

• JMA

Australian Bureau of Meteorology

• BoM

European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts

• ECMWF

Where to find the new Hurricane Tracker?

Tracker was moved to a more accessible place in Windy's interface, both the app and desktop.

Desktop: Hurricane tracker is located in the top right corner, under the 3D globe option.

App: In the app, you can find it in the side menu, under the "Find my location" option,

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The new Multimodel Hurricane Tracker is available both on desktop and mobile apps (ver. 37.1.8)

We have significantly improved our radar for the United States and implemented a new data source into the map

Starting today, users can expect greater radar range, better resolution and more frequent radar image updates while using the Weather radar layer in the US.

Here is a little comparison between old and new radar view over a couple of areas, where the difference is the most noticeable:

US West

US East

We are happy for the improvement and we hope that our users will find it beneficial.

More radar updates are planned for the foreseeable future.

https://www.windy.com/-Weather-radar-radar?radar,35.281,-103.198,4,internal

Seeing how the new iOS widgets are becoming more and more popular, we decided to make iOS Windy widgets even more powerful.

With the recent update, we have released new adjustable radar widgets.

Weather radar is very important feature for the most of us, therefore having a quick access to current weather situation is essential. Put the new radar widget on your home screen and get radar information at a glance without opening the app.

Radar widget comes with its own settings, where you can customise a location you want to display the data for and more. Let's take a look!

To open the settings, tap on the widget and choose "Edit Widget".

Use custom location

Within the widget you can determine whether you would like to display radar for the same location as you use in the app or a different one. You can easily search for a place with the Choose location option and tap "Done" to save it.

Show countries

Don't want to see country labels on the map? Turn this option off and enjoy less cluttered map.

Show cities

The same goes for displaying cities. Turn them on/off.

Zoom

With the zoom option you can zoom the map to the desired level. Do you want widget to show larger area or a certain country? It is up to you.

Last but not least, there is daily forecast widget showing weather for every 3 hours and short overview for 5 days ahead.

And separate widget with short overview for 5 days.

HRRR joins Windy! We have carefully listened to your suggestions and selected yet another reliable model as a new addition. The newly implemented model is HRRR (High-Resolution Rapid Refresh).

The HRRR is a NOAA real-time 3-km resolution, hourly updated, cloud-resolving, convection-allowing atmospheric model, initialized by 3km grids with 3km radar assimilation. Radar data is assimilated in the HRRR every 15 min over a 1-h period adding further detail to that provided by the hourly data assimilation from the 13km radar-enhanced Rapid Refresh.

Main attributes:

• update intervals 1 hour (3 hours for Alaska)
• 3 km resolution
• local model for North America

Learn more about our portfolio of weather models via Guide to Windy weather models.

What layers is HRRR available for?

Model HRRR is available for the following weather layers: Wind, Wind gusts, Wind accumulation, Rain, Thunder, Rain accumulation, New snow, Precip. Type, Temperature, Dew point, Humidity, Clouds, High clouds, Medium clouds, Low clouds, CAPE index, Thermals, Pressure.

Where to find it?

HRRR is local model available for North America and it shares the same map coverage as NAM model. It is available both for desktop and app users.

To select it, open the side menu (in the app) or click on the navigation bar in the bottom right corner (on desktop).

You can also view it in the detailed forecast and compare it with other available weather models for the selected location.

https://www.windy.com/?hrrrConus,34.380,-89.297,4,internal

We are excited to announce the return of 3D mode to Windy.com. Although standard mercator map can be useful tool for detailed weather observations and forecasting, 3D mode can give you the "big picture".

What is new:

• 3D Globe displays all the weather layers, except Radar, Satellite and Weather warnings
• Maximum zoom is set to an equivalent of 6 on 2D Windy
• 3D Globe is being released only for desktop, mobile version will come later
• Favorites are included, but other POI features are excluded from the first BETA version

Access the 3D Globe by clicking on "3D" button under your profile picture.

The missing features and elements will be gradually implemented in next development phases and the existing ones will be improved.

3D Globe is being released in Beta version, available for all our users. In the later stages, 3D Globe will be part of Windy Premium only.

Enjoy and let us know what you think!

First local model for Australia!

We are pleased to launch another local weather model called ACCESS provided by Australia's Bureau of Meteorology.

Australian Community Climate and Earth-System Simulator (ACCESS). Based upon the UK Met Office Unified Model system. ACCESS GS is the global numerical forecast model operated by BoM. It is run four times daily and provides forecast data out to 240 hours with a horizontal resolution of approximately 12 km and 70 vertical levels.

Main attributes:

• 12 km resolution
• local model for Australia
• update intervals 6 - 7 hours

Learn more about our portfolio of weather models via Guide to Windy weather models.

The ACCESS model is accessible both on desktop and in the iOS and Android app, it has 1 hour forecast for the Premium users and is released for the majority of weather layers on Windy.

What layers is ACCESS available for?

ACCESS is available for the following weather layers: Wind, Wind gusts, Wind accumulation, Rain, Thunder, Rain accumulation, New snow, Precip. Type, Temperature, Dew point, Humidity, Clouds, High clouds, Medium clouds, Low clouds, Thermals and Pressure.

Try it out

Select ACCESS model from the bottom bar on desktop or from the side menu under "Forecast model" in the app.

https://www.windy.com/?bomAccess,-31.076,103.240,3,i:pressure,internal

Update: What to do when you cannot see the widget.

Some users reported, that there is no widget even though the iOS and Windy.com app is up to date. This is because of the bug in iOS 16. The Windy widget will probably appear without any action needed in a matter of days, but if you want to force it to work, we recommend to reinstall the app. It helps in all reported cases.

With the release of iOS16, the Windy.com iOS app gets its widgets for the Lock Screen as one of the new exciting features presented on the last Apple Keynote.

There are 5 types of Windy lock screen widgets, ranging from a simple Day Overview, which gives you the maximum/minimum values for the day, to more detailed ones showing the weather forecast for each day or each hour, just like widgets for the home screen.

Lock Screen widgets are also available in Standard and Premium versions with a 1-hour forecast for Premium and 3-hour forecast for non-Premium users.

Adding the Lock Screen Widgets

To add Windy widgets to your lock screen:

1. Long press the screen and tap on Customise button
2. Tap on the Plus Sign right below the time to bring up the Widget Gallery
3. Scroll down, select Windy and pick your desired widgets to arrange them on the screen.

How to edit widgets

Lock Screen widgets are also editable. Tap on the widget when in "customize" mode to bring up the widget settings.

You can select the current/custom location, forecast model, number of days you want the widget for (up to 5 days), and the background.

You can set the background for each widget, allowing you to improve readability and match the widget with a wallpaper.

New Satellite Premium Widgets

This update also includes a new set of Satellite widgets designed for your Home Screen. Widgets come in four styles: ' Visible, Infra, Infra PlusandBlue`.

Each Satellite widget is also fully customizable. You can choose a style, location, and zoom level. Wish to see the map without country/city names? You can turn them off too.

We are excited to announce the launch of Social login for Windy.com!

Social login offers another method of registration besides the classic email registration to access Windy in a smooth and easy way using existing login information from a social network providers.

Supported platforms are Facebook, Apple, and Google.

This greatly simplifies registrations and logins for our end users. With social login, there is no need to register or set up yer another password to remember, just log in with social profile you already have and enjoy Windy to the fullest!

For the full documentation about social login and user profile in general, please visit Information about user profile.

How does it work?

Check out the short video below showing Facebook login to see how easy it is.

Today we are releasing a new set of 5000 stations for environmental radioactivity. The newly added stations show the latest measurements of Ionizing radiation reported across Europe.

Values are reported in the international unit of nanoSieverts per hour (nSv/h). Sievert is a measure of the health effect of low levels of ionizing radiation on the human body.

This effect relates to exposure and dose rates: exposure is the amount of radiation in the area and dose is the amount of that radiation expected to be absorbed by a person. More about Exposure and Dose Rates here.

Radiological data are gathered from The EUropean Radiological Data Exchange Platform (EURDEP), a platform enabling continuous exchange of radiation data by 39 participating countries from their national radiological monitoring networks.

Find out more about radiation via Radiation: Ionizing radiation.

Where to find Radioactivity stations

The Radiation stations are available on desktop only as of now. They are located in the bottom right menu together with other POI stations. Click on "More layers" and select Radiation.

Radiation stations feature will come to the iOS and Android apps within a couple of weeks once the new update is released.

Update: 21st of May, 8:00 a.m. UTC

After hammering India and Bangladesh, Amphan is forecasted to move north-northeastward and weaken into a depression later today. The maximum sustainable winds, which may be carried by the storm, are 50 km/h (27 KT).

Thunderstorms with gusty winds are likely to occur over Bihar and isolated places such as Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya.

Due to the correct timing of rescue teams deployment, there is a minimum human loss.
The worst damages has been concentrated in the West Bangal districts and Sunderbans, which suffered immense destruction.

Update: 20th of May, 4:00 p.m. UTC

The super cyclone Amphan hits India and Bangladesh with its landfall between Indian town of Digha and Hatiya Islands in Bangladesh. Storm is dumping heavy rain and damaging winds on Kolkata leaving a trails of destruction. Reported damages are destroyed houses, power cuts and downed trees.

Cyclone is now moving at 31km/h (17 KT) near 22.2N 88.3E, roughly 25 NM from Kolkata with maximum sustainable winds 138 km/h (75 KT) and gusts 166 km/h (90 KT).

Amphan will move north-northeasterly passing trough the Sunderbans and gradually weaken.

Update: 20th of May, 8:00 a.m. UTC

TC Amphan was moving at 25 km/h (14 KT) near 20.5N 87.9E approximately 129 NM South-Southwest of Kolkata in the last 6 hours. Maximum sustained winds were 157 km/h (85 KT) and gusts 194 km/h (105 KT), which makes it a Category 2 Atlantic hurricane and the strongest storm ever recorded in the Bay of Bengal.

Anticipated landfall still remains for Wednesday evening hours local time (5:30 pm Wednesday IST) near or just east of Hooghly River south of Kolkata.

Impacts

Cyclone could bring very strong storm surges up to 5 meters (16.4 feet), causing roadblocks, power link outages and destruction of houses and crops.

Evacuation of people continues, but a pandemic situation puts a great stress on the whole operation as it became difficult to maintain social distancing.

Update: 19th of May, 02:00 p.m. UTC

Super cyclone Amphan has been already marked as extremely intense in the region and the second strongest storm since 1999. Cyclone is due to make the landfall into West Bengal, Digha and Hatiya Island in Bangladesh during Wednesday morning.

In the last 6 hours, cyclone was moving 16 km/h (09 knots), located at 17.0N 86.9E, 377 NM South-Southwest of Kolkata, India with maximum sustainable winds 203 km/h (110 KT), gusts 250 km/h (135 KT).

Impacts

Storm is expected to weaken before the landfall, but the results could be still devastating with heavy rainfall and tidal waves causing flooding and strong winds resulting in significant physical damage.

Update: 19th of May, 00:00 a.m. UTC

Amphan has strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane, its position is approximately 480 NM south-southwest of Kolkata, India - 15.2N 86.6E, the current movement has been at 14 km/h (08 knots) in the past 6 hours.

The maximum sustained winds are 240.76 km/h (130 KT) and gusts 296.32 km/h (160 KT). The landing will be likely between Kolkata, India, and Chittagong, Bangladesh on Wednesday afternoon or evening. Cyclone is expected to be a hurricane Category 3, when it makes the landfall.

There are already signs of eyewall replacements, which could halt the Amphan's further intensifying. However even if the winds weaken, the real dangers is going to be a potential catastrophic storm surge up to 4–6 meters (13–20 feet).

Update: 18th of May, 12:00 a.m. UTC

TC Amphan is moving near 13.6N 86.4E with maximum sustainable winds 259 km/h (140 KT) and gusts 314 km/h (170 KT).

The cyclone is expected to hit Odisha states and West Bengal on Wednesday noon local time as a super cyclonic storm. Amphan will gain strength in the next 12 hours, but could weaken as it reaches the coasts.

Odisha state is already evacuating citizens to a cyclone shelters, more than a milion people is planned to be evacuated from coastal areas.

Update: 17th of May, 4:00 p.m. UTC

Tropical cyclone Amphan is currently strengthening in the Bay of Bengal near position 12.0N 86.4E with maximum sustainable winds 138 km/h (075 KT) and gusts 166 km/h (090 KT).

At the moment the cyclone is a category 1 on a hurricane scale and could likely become a hurricane category 3, when it reaches coasts in the northeast. The landfall is predicted to occur from Tuesday night through Wednesday.

The movement for next 12 hours is forecasted to be near 13.1N 86.5E and winds 157 km/h (085 KT), gusts 194 km/h (105 KT).

Impacts

Amphan will bring a strong winds and heavy rainfall, causing dangerous flooding with a possibility of a storm surge for vulnerable areas, especially for Bangladesh.

https://www.windy.com/upload/5ec16efe6d85e3001d6ecd01?satellite,20.108,85.761,6,internal

Update: 31st of May, 9:30 a.m. UTC

After making landfall west of Puerto Angel, Mexico, Agatha has downgraded to tropical storm with maximum sustainable winds of 45 mph (72km/h). At landfall, Agatha had sustained winds of 105 mph (168km/h), which makes it the most intense hurricane to make landfall on Mexico's Pacific coast in May on record.

Storm is currently heading northeast at 8 mph and will continue to bring heavy rains across portions of southern Mexico though tonight. Threats of life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides are still active.

Tropical storm conditions will continue through Tuesday morning.

Update: 30th of May, 9:00 p.m. UTC

Agatha is currently making landfall in the southern Mexico, west of the Puerto Angel, Oaxaca with maximum sustainable winds of 105 mph (168km/h).

In the following hours, hurricane will continue to produce very strong winds. Conditions will spread eastward through the night within the warning area.

Tropical storm warning is in effect for Salina Cruz eastward to Boca de Pijijiapan and Lagunas de Chacahua westward to Punta Maldonado.

Dangerous storm surge and heavy rains may produce coastal flooding east of Puerto Angel. Forecasted rainfall can reach between 10 to 16 inches, 20 inches in isolated areas, resulting into life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides.

Update: 30th of May, 7:00 a.m. UTC

Hurricane Agatha has rapidly intensified in the last several hours reaching Category 2 strength as it approached the southern Mexican coast.

Reported maximum sustainable winds are 110 mph (177 km/h) with even higher gusts 130 mph (200 km/h) from Sunday evening.

The system will further intensify and reach Category 3 strength before making landfall, which expected on Monday evening near Huatulco, Mexico, local time.

Threats

Life-threatening storm surge can be expected along the southern coastline with large destructive waves. Heavy rains may cause flash flooding and mudslides over portions of southern Mexico from Monday through Tuesday.

Tropical storm conditions with hurricane-force winds are expected in the hurricane warning area beginning early Monday, local time.

https://www.windy.com/-Hurricane-tracker/hurricanes/agatha?16.104,-109.495,5,i:pressure,internal

Introducing a new model ICON Global on Windy.com.

As we listen to our users, we have decided to implement another highly anticipated model ICON Global 13km to offer even broader spectrum of weather data and options to analyse it. Enjoy!

ICON Global will be added in the app with the next release.

https://www.windy.com/?icon,50.077,14.515,5,m:fhzagpO,internal

Reading the latest news, everybody has to be concerned about the Coronavirus and its impact on daily life of billions of people. The Coronavirus (virus is officially labeled as SARS-CoV-2 and its disease as COVID-19) is spreading quickly around the world, causing unprecedented lockdowns of huge regions and cities, havoc on markets and overload of health facilities in affected areas.

Some countries seem to have already contained the major spread of virus (China, South Korea), some are currently experiencing the initial extreme increase of patients with severe cases (Italy, Iran), with the rest of the world expecting it in upcoming weeks and trying to prepare for it.

Question is, will the rate of spread slow down or even disappear at all? It definitely will.

Check this nice video demonstrating the principle of exponential growth and epidemics

It’s essential to understand that even a very small decrease in “probability of exposure becoming an infection” (referred as p in the video) can reduce the growth of the spread significantly or even stop it completely.

But why do we discuss it at Windy.com, we normally talk just weather, right?

The reason is the outside temperature. Spread of typical flu highly correlates with weather, having its season peak in cold months, declining during spring with almost no cases during the warmest part of the year. Recent studies show that high temperatures and especially high humidity slows the influenza spread. More moisture in warmer air behaves as a barrier for airborne viruses so droplets of cough or sneeze cannot travel as far as they would in colder, dry air.
Of course, more factors can play a role in this flu seasonality (longer sunlight exposure, less clustering of people indoors), but temperature is considered as the major one.

There is a whole family of coronaviruses, some of them already known to humans, causing mild colds and behaving similar to the flu - in warmer climate, they tend to decline. That is the reason why many people believe that same will happen with COVID-19. As stated above, even the slight decrease in person to person transfer rate of the virus has a huge impact on overall number of cases. Will a higher temperature and humidity help us in this way? There are many opinions on that subject, but most experts agree, that it’s too early to judge and only hard data from summer season and their detailed analysis will tell us the truth.

But until then, we have no other option than to make assumptions based on data we have now.

Posts discussing weather patterns (temperature/humidity):

Also check out:
Coronavirus outbreakt

The perspective

As mentioned, the COVID-19 is not all that unknown to us, we had coronavirus strain SARS back in 2003. SARS had its peak in winter months and faded away during May. Typically influenza season falls sometimes between the beginning of fall and the end of spring. So the SARS did not really exceed the usual influenza season trend. But can we expect COVID-19 to follow this path as well?

The current spreading rate tells us a fact, that the COVID-19 has more incidences in places with dryer and colder environment than in more humid and warm locations. For instance let´s take a look at Japan, we would expect the virus to be spreading mainly in big cities like Tokyo, due to a number of foreign visitors and population. But this is not the case, COVID-19 is actually spreading in Hokkaido, despite it has a much lower frequency of travellers. However the weather conditions there are favorable, dry and less humid environment. The same goes for Italy and its epicenter Milan. North of the country is significantly more affected than the south.

On the other hand, it would not be wise to expect the novel coronavirus to behave as the ones before.
It is necessary to say, that SARS 2003 did not go away just because weather got warmer. It was followed by national interventions to isolate cases and everyone, who had the possibility to be infected.

We have already said that the environment plays a key role in influenza activity and dry/cold weather with low humidity favors the transmission. But influenza epidemics often appears in a tropical and subtropical regions during rainy seasons with obviously high humidity values. In other words, there are two types of influenza environments. In cold-dry environment, where humidity/temperature goes below 11–12 g/kg and 18–21°C, influenza peaks during cold months. In humid-rainy case, if humidity/temperature does not go under those values, influenza peaks during rainy season.

Immunity is another factor, which is worth a consideration. Our immunity is significantly worse in winter than in summer and we also lack vitamin D, because of less ultraviolet light exposure in cold months. Vitamin D benefits our immune system and helps us to be durable against numerous diseases, even so this factor can be observed as not so important in relation to influenza activity.

But then again, new viruses are likely to persist longer than a common ones, which have been in the population for years or decades.

Available data

We at Windy.com are no experts in the area of viruses, but we have access to the best weather data available.

We have assembled temperature records for each country (taken from the area of major spread of the virus within the country or the capital of that country) and pictured them along with recent Coronavirus spread data (daily amount of new cases, sourced from Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by Johns Hopkins CSSE) to see if there could be any correlation.

Based on the charts above, we can see a slight correlation in relation with a higher temperature and virus decrease, and opposite a lower temperature and faster spread of COVID-19.

Of course, there are many drawbacks in this approach:

• data coming from different countries aren’t easily comparable (some countries test much more than the others, some have much highly populated areas, also quality of data coming from some countries is more than questionable)

• the virus has quite a long incubation period, therefore “new” cases are being reported several days after the people were actually infected (but at least average temperature at given location can help to mitigate this effect)

• there are still not that many daily observations, the data window is quite too small

• correlation does not imply causation” - even if there seems to be a visual dependency between the temperature and the increase/decrease rate of new cases, it is absolutely no proof that there is a correlation between those two

As always there are many opinions and very little data to predict anything for sure. So the truth will be somewhere in the middle. It should be essential to avoid any catastrophic predictions as well as not to underestimate it.

The latest data for China shows a retreat of Coronavirus cases and high amount of recovered patients in a comparison to the total amount. Other countries will hopefully have the same progress.

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Not happy with the findings? Don’t despair. If the weather won’t help us, there are still many ways, how each of us can help - avoid crowded places, work remotely if possible, stay fit, wash your hands, do not touch your face.
Avoid face to face social contacts for a while - read a couple of books or go online! There is still a lot to explore, also at Windy.com.

Update: 23rd of February, 9:00 a.m. UTC

Cyclone Emnati struck the southeastern side of Madagascar as Category 1 cyclone with winds of up to 135 km/h. More than 30,000 people were evacuated ahead of Emnati's path.

It is estimated that more than 250,000 people could have been impacted by the cyclone. Emnati caused extensive damage to houses and other buildings.

Update: 22nd of February, 7:00 p.m. UTC

Cyclone Emnati is making landfall over Madagascar between cities Mananjary and Manakara as Category 1 system.

Update: 22nd of February, 7:00 a.m. UTC

TC Emnati is now about 12 hours away from the landfall over the eastern coast of Madagascar. The 4th tropical cyclone to affect Madagascar this year has weakened to Category 1 with maximum sustainable winds of 148 km/h.

It is no longer expected to regain the strength of cyclone Category 3, however still remains a very dangerous.

Impacts will likely be significant, heavy rainfall and strong winds expected.

Update: 21st of February, 3:00 p.m. UTC

Cyclone Emnati is keeping its status of Category 3 hurricane with maximum winds of 185 km/h. Conditions also remain very favourable for re-strenghtening before striking the coasts.

Landfall will occur on the eastern coast of Madagascar late Tuesday.

Update: 20th of February, 10:00 p.m. UTC

Cyclone is located near 17.6S 54.6E with maximum winds of 203 km/h. Emnati is expected to reach Category 4 before making Madagascar landfall on the eastern coastline on Tuesday.

Due to expected heavy rainfall, there is a threat for damaging winds and flooding rain.

Update: 20th of February, 7:00 a.m. UTC

Tropical cyclone Emnati is currently tracking towards Madagascar with status of Category 3 hurricane, it is the third cyclone to affect Madagascar this month after cyclones Batsirai and Dumako.

Cyclone should hit the coastal areas of Toamasina, Madagascar, Réunion and Mauritius on Tuesday.

Maximum winds at the moment are 194 km/h. Heavy rainfall is expected in advance.

https://www.windy.com/upload/6214a13a13e0da24fd9bd622?-27.651,39.564,5,i:pressure,internal

As some members of our team are pilots themselves, we decided to enrich Windy.com with a new soaring forecast layer for (but not only) glider and paraglider pilots!

The new feature is called Thermals and is a part of the Clouds group. To access it, open --> "More layers.." and add Thermals to your main layer selection:

The color scale indicates thermal height (meters or feet AMSL) and is overlayed with cloud type icons (small/large cumulus, overcast, lightnings). Soaring forecast is available for all the global models (ECMWF, GFS, ICON) as well as for the local models ICON-EU and NAM.

During the initial beta phase, thermals will be available to all of our users. Once the beta phase finishes, Thermals will be available to subscribers only.

The thermals layer is available on all platforms - desktop, app, and mobile browser.

Thermals layer was brought to you by our developer @FILIP_K , who is a passionate pilot himself. Well done Filip!

Feedback wanted!

This is an experimental feature in early stages of development, we will appreciate your feedback below this article! (:

https://www.windy.com/-Show---add-more-layers/overlays?ccl,50.087,2.387,5,i:pressure,internal

Air pollution represents one of the biggest issues and threats of our planet, it is the world’s fourth-largest risk factor for early death and according to the World Health Organization (WHO), nine out of ten human beings currently breathe unhealthy air.

Whether the origin of pollution is caused by natural disasters or is human-based, we believe that air quality data should be open and accessible to everyone.

We are delighted to announce our partnership with OpenAQ, our new ally in helping communities most affected by air pollution to protect their health more effectively.

OpenAQ is a non-profit organisation that has built the world’s largest open-source air quality data platform aggregating and harmonizing air quality data from reference-grade and low-cost sensor sources. By connecting communities with open data, OpenAQ aims to support the work of scientists, journalists, educators, entrepreneurs, community activists, and other air quality advocates fighting air inequality across the globe.

The same theme resonates with our mission to provide reliable air pollution data and present them in one easy-to-use form together with Windy weather forecast data and visualization to offer complete picture to our users.

Data made available on OpenAQ has been integrated into Windy.com, further expanding our portfolio of more than 44 000 stations. Users can access air pollution data via Air Quality stations. More about AQ stations here.

We have entered into a partnership with SaveEcoBot, an independent platform for Air Quality data, to publish the most thorough network of radiation monitoring stations in Ukraine.

SaveEcoBot is an environmental map and chatbot with an independent air quality sensors network run by non-profit organisation SaveDnipro with an aim to defend environmental rights of the people in developing countries.

Our cooperation allows us to display radiation readings from a broad spectrum of environmental data sources in Ukraine and offer them in an easy-to-access way to our users and other affected communities for free.

New: Station detail and data archive

This update also brings a new station detail with data archive for the last 7 days.

Besides that, the detail contains a chart showing the frequency of readings for each station, time of the last update and average update interval.

Where to find radiation stations

Radiation feature is located in the bottom right menu together with other POI stations. If you do not see them on the panel, open More layers and select Radiation from there.

Radiation monitoring stations in Europe are available for desktop and mobile browsers. Android and iOS apps will get the Radiation feature with the upcoming update in the following weeks.

Update: 18th of May, 9:00 a.m. UTC

Cyclone Tauktae continues to maintain a wind speed of 110-120km/hr, since the landfall in Gujarat, where the cyclone left behind a trail of destruction along the coastal areas.

Tauktae continues to show weakening trend. Cyclone is currently moving north-northeast and is likely to enter southwestern parts of Rajasthan today, where it may cause heavy to very heavy rainfall in many districts.

Update: 17th of May, 9:00 p.m. UTC

Cyclone Tauktae has made a landfall as extremely severe storm in India's western state of Gujarat, between Diu and Jafarabad with wind speeds of up to 160km/h. The process is expected to take several hours.

Update: 17th of May, 10:00 a.m. UTC

Tauktae is moving North-Northwestwards at speed of 20km/h, approximately 150 km away from Mumbai.

In the last hours, cyclone has become extremely severe cyclonic storm and posses a threat of very heavy rains at isolated places with strong winds as it passes close to the Mumbai coast towards Gujarat.

Tauktae is predicted to strike the Gujarat coast in the Bhahvnagar district Monday night, local time.

Update: 16th of May, 5:00 p.m. UTC

Cyclone Tauktae has intensified and is now a Category 3 cyclone with maximum winds speeds of 185 km/h (100 kt).

System continues to move north towards Gujarat and bringing heavy rainfall along the coastal areas of Goa, northern Karnataka, and Maharashtra with gusty winds.

Tauktae will further intensify during the next 24 hours and strike the Gujarat coast on Monday evening.

Update: 15th of May, 11:00 p.m. UTC

Cyclone Tauktae is showing signs of increasing organization as it parallels the India coastline and is likely to intensify into Very Severe Cyclonic Storm during the next 12 hours. Maximum sustainable winds are around 120km/h (65 kt) with higher gusts.

Latest forecast brings it ashore in the state of Gujarat (India) in the next 48 hours and the possible landfall is predicted on Tuesday 18th.

Cyclone could bring very heavy to extremely heavy rainfall together with flash floods and landslides over the coastal districts of Kerala, Karnataka and Goa.

https://www.windy.com/-Satellite-satellite?satellite,14.370,73.524,6,internal